Red rubber feeding tube, 12 French by 43 inches. The larger gauge and longer length for bigger animals - grown puppies, adult dogs, calves, foals and lambs.
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A red rubber feeding tube, 12 French gauge, 43 inches long.
French gauge measures the tube's outside diameter - the higher the number, the thicker the tube. 5fr is the fine gauge for a newborn puppy. 12fr is considerably thicker, for animals with the throat to take it: an older puppy, an adult dog, a calf, a foal, a lamb or a goat kid.
The 43 inch length goes with the gauge. A tube has to reach the stomach of the animal it is used on, and a calf is a long way from nose to stomach compared with a puppy.
Using a tube too small for the animal makes feeding slow and can let the tube curl rather than pass. Too large for the animal is uncomfortable and can be worse than that. Match the tube to the animal.
Softer and more flexible than firm PVC, which most stockmen and breeders prefer for anything they are passing into a live animal.
WHERE A 12fr GETS USED
Tube feeding a calf that will not suck. A newborn calf that has not taken colostrum in the first hours is the classic case, and it is a race against a closing window.
Lambs and goat kids that have gone cold and stopped sucking.
A foal that is not nursing, under veterinary direction.
Older puppies and adult dogs where your vet has asked for tube feeding or fluids.
Passing fluids or medication where an animal will not take them by mouth.
Will my syringe fit? Yes. The flared end of a Covidien-pattern feeding tube is made to push onto a regular luer syringe - the ordinary tapered nozzle you already have in the box. You do not need a special feeder or an adapter. That one fact saves more phone calls than anything else on this page.
Luer Slip or Luer Lock? Slip is the plain push-on taper; Lock is threaded so the attachment screws on. The tube's flared end pushes onto either, and most breeders use slip for tube feeding because it comes apart quickly when you want it apart.
Which French size? French gauge is the tube's outside diameter - higher number, thicker tube. The common range for neonates runs 3.5 Fr for the very smallest through 5 Fr and 8 Fr, with larger gauges from 10 Fr up for bigger puppies, kittens and other young stock. Match the tube to the animal: too thick is uncomfortable and unnecessary, too thin makes a feed take forever.
Which syringe size goes with it? Small barrels of 3 cc to 12 cc for small newborns, where you want precise and slow control. Larger barrels around 35 cc pair with the bigger tubes and bigger puppies where a feed needs real volume. Breeders running a litter usually keep both.
Length. The industry-standard sterile tube is 16 inches. Ours run longer - 43 inches on this 12 Fr and 22 inches on the 5 Fr - which gives more tube to hold outside the animal while you work, and matters on longer- bodied stock like calves and foals.
Sterile and individually wrapped. One per animal, per feed, so nothing passes from a sick animal to a well one down a row.
Tube feeding is a skill, and the tube bypasses the animal's own ability to stop swallowing when it has had enough. Two things go wrong, and both kill: the tube placed into the airway instead of the stomach, and too much formula delivered at once.
We are not printing a method or a volume on a product page. That is not caution for its own sake - it is that a page cannot watch you do it, cannot see the puppy, and cannot weigh it. Be shown by your veterinarian, or by a breeder who does it, before the night you need it.
Two things worth knowing regardless: a cold puppy cannot digest, so warmth comes before feeding, and every puppy is weighed before every feed because their weight changes daily and the volume follows the weight.
Placed wrong, the tube goes into the lungs rather than the stomach, and what you put down it drowns the animal. Be shown how by your veterinarian before you need it. We are not printing a method here - a page is not a pair of hands.
Your attending veterinarian. They can see the animal, they know its history, and they can weigh it. Published figures are a starting point written for everybody; your vet's answer is written for the animal in front of you. Ask before you need it rather than during.
| Directions | Use as directed on the product label and packaging. Questions about using this product with your animals? Call A to Z Vet Supply at 1-800-979-2869, or ask your veterinarian. |
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