Catheter Tip Syringes 140cc – Syringe Only

Use to stomach tube weak lambs and kids. You will also need a stomach tube to tube feed a lamb. Using the 140cc syringe is our choice because it’s so much easier to milk into the large syringe.
Syringes can be used as a drencher as well.

140cc Syringe
8.25″ long, 1.75″ diameter
Catheter tip
Marked up to 5 oz
Marked with a line (every 10 mL) from 1-140 mL and in numbers from 10-140 mL

How To Use
By using the following tube feeding method, you can feed weak and stubborn lambs/kids quickly and safely.

1. Be very careful to gently extend the animal’s chin so that its neck is straight before carefully inserting the stomach tube. If the light is good you can visually observe the bulge of the tube sliding down the neck. In bad light, we use our fingers to feel its presence. If you can neither feel nor see the tube, it may well be in the animal’s hard hollow trachea and thus the lungs. Be cautious of this. If the tube enters the lungs instead of the stomach, pneumonia and starvation could result.
2. Pull the tube out gently and restart it. The chance of wrongly inserting the tube is not as great as it may appear. Simply be sure that the tube is inserted in a straight line from the animal’s mouth to its stomach.
3. Continue to pass the tube into the stomach. The usual distance is 11 or 12 inches. You cannot pass the tube too far, but it is very important to pass the tube far enough. If it is in the correct position you will hear a gurgling sound through the empty syringe.
4. Should the solution not run, the cause could be an airlock or possibly with older animals, the teeth could be clamped on the upper part of the tube. If an airlock occurs, slide tube in and out about 1/2 inch.
5. Do not ram the milk into the stomach. We usually do not actually insert the plunger unless using thick colostrum which will not flow on its own. If the plunger is used, gently push the milk into the animals stomach.

Tips
If the syringe is sticking use vegetable oil to loosen the plunger. This will not harm the animals or medications.

Precautions
Be sure milk has had time to flow out of the entire length of tube and into the lamb’s stomach before withdrawing tube from the animal. Doing otherwise may accidentally allow milk to enter the lamb’s lungs as the tube is being removed.
Clear plastic tubes are a little easier to insert because they’re less flexible. However, when it’s cold (Midwest USA cold), plastic tubes are stiff and may cause injury during insertion (a greater concern with goat kids). Red rubber tubes are the most flexible.

Producers should NOT tube lambs that cannot hold their heads upright. In most cases these are hypothermic lambs. They need glucose (IP) and warming first. Once the animal has been revived and can hold its head up, then you can use the various stomach tube devices to deliver nourishment.