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We actually have 4 sizes of stomach tubes: a very small diameter “dog tube” for tiny newborns or premature calves, a slightly larger size for young calves, a “foal” tube which works well for weanlings or adult animal cattle, or a larger tube (about ¾ to one inch diameter) for cows. We use the large one when we need to get a lot of fluid into the animal fairly quickly or let gas out of a bloating cow.

There are numerous times you must get fluid into a calf—a newborn calf that needs colostrum or a sick calf that needs fluid and medications given orally. If a newborn calf is unable to nurse its mother or suck a bottle, the quickest and safest way to get colostrum into him is by tube. A sick calf generally will not nurse a bottle, and the only way to give him adequate fluid is by tube. There are also times it’s important to be able to get fluid into an adult, such as mineral oil into a bloated animal or fluid and nutrients into a sick animal that is unable to eat or drink.

There are two ways to “tube” a calf. You can use an esophageal feeding probe (a metal or stiff plastic tube that goes down the calf’s throat and partway down the esophagus—about 16 inches--and is attached to a container or bag that holds the fluid you wish to give him), or you can use a smaller diameter long flexible nasogastric tube that goes into the nostril and then clear down into the stomach. The latter is much more versatile for a variety of purposes.

How We Started Using The Stomach Tube
Years ago, before esophageal feeders were invented, the flexible nasogastric tube was the only way to get fluid into a calf. Our vet showed us how to use the “nose tube” more than 40 years ago, when we were treating calves for scours. That spring of 1969 was very wet. We were calving in March and April and having a terrible siege of scours. We had to treat nearly calf that year; they all got sick by the time they were 2 weeks old, and we were spending about 8 hours a day just catching and doctoring calves.

We lost 3 calves that spring from scours and felt lucky we didn’t lose more. Near the end of that challenging season we learned how to use a stomach tube for easier, safer, quicker and more reliable administration of fluids and oral medications. From then on we gave all our scour medications in liquid form; a liquid antibiotic such as Neomycin sulfate solution can be absorbed by a damaged/compromised gut much more readily than pills or boluses. Necropsies on calves that die from scours often reveal pills that were given earlier, still sitting in the gut undissolved.

Since 1969, we’ve tubed hundreds of calves and lost no more to scours. This handy tool made it easy to give fluids/electrolytes and oral medication to sick calves (including keopectate or Pepto Bismol to help slow down the gut on scouring calves), revolutionizing our ability to head off dehydration and serious illness. Because it’s so easy, we can give good supportive treatment to animals with problems.

Importance Of Supportive Care
For a severely dehydrated calf, usually 24 to 48 hours of treatment (giving fluid every 6 to 8 hours—or even more often in a very young calf) will turn it around and the calf will be past the crisis and on the mend. The key to saving a lot of these calves is catching the problem early, before they are so dehydrated and weak that they can no longer absorb fluids orally. After they reach that point they need IV fluids in order to save them. But with a stomach tube you can administer oral fluids early in the game, and reverse the dehydration before it becomes life threatening.

Often it’s the supportive care (fluids, nutrients, shelter, etc.) that makes all the difference in whether an animal will live or die. Antibiotics alone are sometimes of very little value, especially in situations where you might be fighting viral scours, crypto or coccidiosis rather than bacterial scours. With any kind of diarrhea, the killer is often dehydration. The calf loses body fluid and becomes weak and cold. If weather is bad he goes downhill even faster because he can no longer regulate his body temperature and is more susceptible to cold stress. But if you can keep him warm and replace his lost fluids and electrolytes, this can buy him time for his own immune system to fight the disease pathogens and he’ll bounce back.

A good example of the importance of supportive care and fluids was a calf that suffered from a combination of scours and quick pneumonia, the spring of 1975. A month old, he was perfectly healthy one evening, running and playing with his buddies, and by the next morning was lying flat out, too weak to get up. He was scouring, hadn’t nursed his mother since the previous evening (she had a full udder and was worried about him), and he was dehydrated. His legs were cold (due to impaired circulation from the fluid loss), even though he had a fever of 104 degrees. My husband and I loaded him onto the feed truck and brought him to the house. We laid him on old towels next to the wood stove, and gave him an injection of antibiotic to combat the pneumonia, and two big doses of fluid (1 and a half quarts each), 2 hours apart. Soon after the second batch of fluid via stomach tube, he got up and started walking around the house. But if we hadn’t reversed his severe dehydration, this calf probably would have died.

Giving adequate fluids to a calf with pneumonia (that’s unable to nurse) is just as important as giving fluids to a scouring calf. Keeping the calf well hydrated is crucial, especially if you are giving drugs like Banamine (which can be helpful in reducing fever and inflammation and preventing lung damage) or any type of sulfa drug, since these can cause kidney damage in dehydrated animals. Calves with high fever generally won’t eat or drink enough; if they stop nursing we always give them fluids and nutrients via tube.

Using A Nasogastric Tube
We still use this kind of stomach tube for treating many calves; in some instances it’s more effective than using the shorter esophageal probe, because the latter does not go clear into the stomach (and hence cannot relieve bloat, nor remove other unwanted stomach contents like dirt). We also use a larger diameter nasogastric tube for administering fluid (or mineral oil) to adult cattle. Obviously the esophageal feeder probe is inadequate for treating a large animal.

For giving baby calves colostrum or electrolyte fluids, however, the esophageal feeder probe tube is very effective, and easy to use. Many ranchers today use this handy tool. When the calf is properly restrained and the probe carefully placed, it is a very handy and safe way to give fluid. Both the esophageal feeding probe and the nasogastric tube must be inserted carefully and properly, however, to decrease the risk of injuring or drowning the calf.
When making a stomach tube for young calves, a flexible plastic or nylon tube about 4 feet long is usually adequate. It should be about ¼ inch in diameter. For weanlings it’s better if the tube is about 5 feet long. For adult cattle you need a larger diameter tube (about ½ inch to ¾ inch diameter) at least 7 feet long.

This type of tube is handy to administer fluids or liquid medications, and better than an esophageal feeder if you are treating a bloated animal; it goes clear into the rumen and can let gas come back out the tube to relieve pressure before you pour in the mineral oil or other medications. It is also useful if a calf has been eating dirt and is plugged up. You can put a small amount of water directly into the stomach and then let it come back out the tube, bringing dirt with it. By alternately putting water in and draining it out, you can clean a lot of dirt out of a calf. This works very well if you can lie the calf on a table with his head lower than his stomach, for draining the water back out.

You can make a nasogastric tube from any flexible tubing of proper diameter. Just smooth or bevel one end (with a knife, sander or grinder) so it won’t scrape the nasal passage and throat as it is put into the calf. Administer fluid by attaching a large funnel to your end of the tube after the smooth end has been put into the stomach via the nostril. To give mineral oil or castor oil (the latter, especially, is quite thick and won’t run down the tube very readily), we use a large (140 cc) syringe to force warm oil mixed with a little warm water down the tube.
If you are tubing a calf in cold weather, keep the tube in a thermos jug of warm water until use, to keep the tube warm and flexible so it won’t get stiff. If you will be treating more than one calf, put a little disinfectant such as Nolvasan in the warm water, so that when you put the tube back into the thermos to carry to the next calf it will be rinsed and cleaner. Always blow any water out of the tube just before you insert it into the calf.

Restrain the calf by backing him into a corner and holding his head/neck between your legs. Tuck his nose downward toward his chest before inserting the tube. If his head is pointed up or stretched forward, the tube is more likely to go into the windpipe instead of the esophagus. The esophagus is slightly above the windpipe. The tube will readily go into the esophagus if the calf’s nose is tucked downward; if his head is stretched forward the tube tends to travel straight into the windpipe.

Often the tube will have a slight natural curve; hold it so the curve will follow the bend of the nostril and thus go in easier. Put the smoothed end into one nostril, rather quickly—before the calf sees it coming and resists by clamping the inner part of his nostril shut. If he clamps it shut, it will be difficult to insert the tube and may also bloody his nose. Push the tube quickly to the back of the throat before he clamps this sphincter shut, and then push more gently and slowly so the calf can swallow it. He must swallow it before it can enter the esophagus. If he fails to swallow, it may go into his windpipe instead. On rare occasion it may even curve around and start back out through the other nostril. If this happens, gently pull it out and start over.

Most calves will resist and fight a little as you start to put the tube in, but once it gets past the back of the mouth they usually quit fussing. You have to “feel” when it gets to the back of the mouth (about 6 inches of tubing, for a calf) and allow the calf to swallow it, providing the momentum as he does so. If you ram it down too quickly and don’t give him a chance to swallow it, the tube will go down his windpipe. You can usually tell when the calf swallows, and as you feel him swallowing you can ease the tube on down. After you’ve done this a few times you get a better idea of how it must go and how it feels, and it gets a lot easier for you to do it correctly.

Make sure the tube is swallowed and goes down the esophagus. Don’t administer fluid, oil or colostrum until you are sure it’s in the right place, or you risk drowning the calf. There are several clues to tell if it’s right. If the calf coughs as you try to put the tube on down, this usually means it’s in his windpipe. Take it out and start over. If it goes down easily and you meet with no resistance—and it goes in at least 2 feet or more in a small calf—it’s in the stomach. It can’t go that far in the windpipe; that passage branches into the smaller bronchial tubes. If the tube becomes hard to push or stops, you’d better take it out and try again.

After it has gone in far enough, you can double check to make sure it’s in the stomach by blowing on your end. If you hear burbling noises or smell stomach odors coming out (these odors will be common in an older calf but not a newborn), it’s in the stomach. If your blowing makes the calf cough, it’s in the windpipe and you must take it out.

Once you are sure it’s in the stomach, go ahead and attach a funnel and administer the fluid or colostrum, or use a syringe to force down the mineral oil or castor oil if you are treating bloat, a plugged up calf, or an acute toxic gut infection that has shut down the gut. Castor oil will stimulate the intestines to start moving again. If giving castor oil to a calf with a plugged or shut down gut, shake up 4 to 6 ounces of oil with an equal amount of very warm water (in a small jar) and suck the mixture up into your syringe. If you keep the castor oil warm enough it will go down the tube much more readily than if it’s cold and thick. After pushing all the oil down the tube, follow it with a little warm water to help “clean” most of the thick oil out of the tube and on into the stomach.

When you are finished giving the colostrum, electrolyte fluids or the oil and water, detach the funnel (or syringe) and blow on your end of the tube to get the last of the fluid out of it. Then put your thumb over your end to help keep any residual fluid from dripping out as you quickly but gently pull it out of the animal’s nose—so there won’t be any fluid dripped into the nasal passages on its way out.

Handy For Many Purposes
With the advent of better “scour” vaccines for the pregnant cows (to give calves some passive immunity that will protect them from some of the most common types of scours), most of us don’t have as many problems with scours now as we did in the past. But there are still occasional instances where a calf will need treatment—for certain types of scours (like crypto or coccidiosis) that the vaccines don’t protect against, or for bloat, pneumonia or some other problem in which the ability to give medications and fluids by tube will help to quickly resolve the problem.

Our stomach tubes have helped us save a lot of “critters” including several newborns that for one reason or another got too chilled to nurse (or were unable to nurse for some other reason) and got their first colostrum via tube, and also some big calves that were bloating and had to have the gas let out with a tube before their distended rumens could accommodate oil. Our tube also saved a 400-pound steer we brought home from the range and nursed back to health when he suffered from coccidiosis and was too weak to stand up or eat/drink for 3 weeks. We fed him 3 times a day with the stomach tube, giving him several gallons daily of water, milk, powdered protein and molasses until he was strong enough to eat and drink again.

The tube also helped us save a cow with wooden tongue that wouldn’t eat or drink for 4 days, a cow with pneumonia that was “down” for several weeks and unable to eat or drink (we gave her a mix of water, molasses, mushed-up grain pellets—a slurry of fluid and nutrients that would go down the tube), a cow with snakebite (she had a fever of 107 degrees and a face and mouth so swollen she couldn’t swallow for several days), and a newborn calf whose mother stepped on his head and broke off his lower jaw. We taped his mouth shut after placing the jawbones back together, and they healed beautifully—because we were able to feed the calf via stomach tube through the nostril for those 2 weeks while the bones knitted together. Indeed, the stomach tube is the most versatile and useful tool on our ranch, and we’ve lost track of how many cattle it has helped us save.