Different 32 AHV-1 strains kindly provided by the Avian Disease Research Center of Sichuan Agricultural University were examined with the established FQ-PCR method and these specimens all tested positive in the FQ-PCR assay, indicating that this method is sensitive and compatible with wide range of AHV-1 viruses. Ten-fold dilution series of pAHV-1 plasmid standard DNA were tested by the established real-time PCR assay to evaluate the sensitivity of the system and the detection limit was found to be 1.0 × 10 1 copies/reaction. Comparisons were made between conventional PCR and the established FQ-PCR using dilution series to calculate the end point sensitivity of each assay. The results indicate that the established FQ-PCR is around 100 times more sensitive than the conventional PCR method, detecting pAHV-1 down to dilutions of 1.0 × 10 1 , compared to dilutions of only 1.0 × 10 3 for conventional PCR.