The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Sheep => Topic started by: SallyintNorth on April 23, 2018, 10:58:25 pm
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I've just made myself curious.
I was writing about the importance of doing bottle feeding correctly, especially with very young lambs, so that the milk arrives in the abomasum and not in the rumen or reticulum. I was explaining about the oesophageal groove forming a tube that delivers the milk into the correct stomach, once the reflex is established.
It made me wonder how we ever manage to get the stomach tube into the right stomach? And how we would know? I am happy about making sure it is in "the stomach" as opposed to the lungs - but what makes it land in the abomasum rather than the reticulum or omasum?
(I found the diagrams on this (http://calfcare.ca/calf-feeding/the-calf’s-digestive-system/) page rather helpful. It's about calves but the same applies to other ruminants.)
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I think that it works because in really young animals the rumen is not developed so neither will the other two stomachs be operational.
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It's also to do with the extended angle you put the head at to pass the tube down, it will help it to pass through the groove.
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It's also to do with the extended angle you put the head at to pass the tube down, it will help it to pass through the groove.
So that extended - almost vertical - angle is really important then.
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wow - an important read for tonight as i didnt know to miss anything but the lungs, ive always kinda inserted enough tube so i can hold it strainght with head up and on its nose and still had one jand to pour the milk in
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wow - an important read for tonight as i didnt know to miss anything but the lungs, ive always kinda inserted enough tube so i can hold it strainght with head up and on its nose and still had one jand to pour the milk in
Ditto!
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Interesting. Thank you for sharing this Sally. I'm thinking the swallow reflex when the tube first goes down must help make the oesophageal groove receptive. Very occasionally I've had the experience when I think it has been presented correctly but towards the end it doesn't feel right and so I have removed it completely and started again and then it has felt normal. On those occasions perhaps the placing of the tube has not been timed right to get to benefit from that swallow reflex.
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Actually yes, now you describe it, I think I’ve had that.
How do we describe the correct feel for people who who are new to it? Measuring the expected length of the swallowed tube is obviously a help.
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Yes. I was taught to take a rough measurement from throat to stomach (for my coloured Ryelands it is about a the same as the extended length of my hand) then I (mentally) mark on the tube how much of the tube I expect to still be able to see when it is fully inserted. It feels right when it goes all the way to the mark and feels like it has reached a definite 'stop'. The times when it does not feel right it has met resistance a few centimetres too early (about 3 to 6 perhaps?). The resistance feels 'tight' but as if it would carry on if I pushed it. If you pull,it back a bit and try again it usually has the same resistance, you have to go all the way out and start again which makes sense if it is the swallow reflex that is needed.
Your diagram just looks consistent with that resistance being the point before rather than after the oesophageal groove.