Tonight when I was feeding my little orphan - she bit off and swallowed part of the nipple. Has anyone had experience with something foreign like that getting swallowed. She is several months old so not a little tiny thing.
I am so worried but she seems fine - hoping that she will cough it up with cud and spit it out.
I tried to open her mouth and get it out but couldn't. Ended up with a bloody finger and her swallowing.
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Good to hear! If it was a very small piece, it might have passed through without any issues. Hope so!
Well - everything seems fine. My little girl is acting perfectly normal. I don't know what happened to the nipple , I guess she could have even spit it up when I wasn't there. Never found anything on the ground. If she was going to have a problem I would guess it would have happened by now.
Thanks Deborah - she had her head up so hopefully she will be fine. I will keep a close eye on her.
Oh, no! You will just have to wait and see if it goes through her digestive system. If she goes off-feed, you know why! She will probably need emergency surgery to save her. If a dog ate that, I'd say no problem because it would just go right through him, but goats normally first put food into their rumen then regurgitate it to chew it a second time before sending it to their second stomach. You might luck out if she was holding her head upright when sucking on the bottle. When they nurse or drink from a bottle (which should be held above their head like a mom's teat) the milk goes directly to their second stomach. If she sucked the nipple into her second stomach, her chances are good. If she brought her head more level like a goat that is eating, then she may have swallowed it into her first stomach and would probably be more likely to have problems. Someone on here a couple years ago had a goat eat a plastic bag and die because it got stuck in her rumen. Hopefully your little girl will be okay!
Important thing to know about those nipples -- they start to fall apart after a couple of months of use. When you see that they are starting to look fat, start testing them daily. Pinch and pull hard on the nipple each day. Don't worry about breaking it -- that's the idea! If you can pull off a part of it, a kid could do it too, so it's better off in the garbage. She may not have actually bitten off a piece. I've pulled off a piece many times simply by pulling on it. Once the nipple starts to feel sticky, it is only a week or two away from falling apart.