E18- Bottle Babies

Learn Pate's tricks and tips for bottle-feeding babies including how to hold them, what formula she uses, and more! You'll also learn about some of the animals we've had to bottle-feed over the years and how we work to ensure more successes than failures.

Original music by Matt Setter and friend Sean!

Original content by Matt Setter and friend, Sean!

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

0:54

Hi, I am Jme. And I'm Pate. And we are Motley Zoo Animal Rescue. This is our podcast Rescue shit. Boop. Today we're going to talk about bottle babies. They're so damn cute. They're so damn messy and they're so damn tiring. So when I went in the bathroom, okay, the fatty, fatty chunker, we, he can't even put his legs down because he is so fat. They just stick out straight out. I know. So, yeah. Pate has this puppy, the mom is not being very helpful. She wouldn't even look at me. She is petrified. Yeah. She's like, just... She is shut down so hard. Yeah. I, I haven't seen that in a long time. Mm-hmm. But, anyway, the most of the babies are like a handful size, you know, and this one is like three or four times the size of the others and he doesn't look real. He looks like a little, like this tiny (Fizzgig) head. Yes. He is completely round and his legs can't even like fold over his body because he's so fat. I'm not fat shaming him. It's just funny because he looks ridiculous because his body is so big, (so much big), much bigger and rounder than any others to the point where his legs are barely functional. Yeah. But he's the healthiest one. Yeah, he, I mean, and he's eating on his own now too. What? I'm like, dude, just stop. He's like two weeks old. He's eating his mom's food. Wow. Okay. Yeah, he is. He's just like, I gotta eat. He's for two, eat more. He really is. He's like, that bottle's not enough for me. What is his name? Do we have a name for him? Well, I was thinking I wanted to call him like LS Dunes. LS Dunes, which is the band that Frank Iro from My Chemical Romance is in, as well as Anthony Green from Sison. Do they want a fat puppy named after them? I don't know. Frank Iro has two adopted rescue dogs. Oh. And he was on the Dodo because he and his family rescued snapping turtle babies or something like that. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, he's a really cool dude. Well, do we have Showbox connections? I keep asking you and you don't do anything about it? Are you kidding me? I was just gonna tell you that I'm just sitting around in my ass like all the time. I'm not just writing like Grant, I'm not doing anything. Like, not even grant writing? No. Oh my God. Like, I mean, that's all you do. I know! That's your job. I wrote, Jonna and asked her who the new contact was. 'cause we hadn't seen any shows there in a while and wondering if they wanted animals. So yeah, I thought of you. L S Dunes. I am working on it. Frankie Frank. When is it though? I can't remember. August two. Oh yeah. So see we have time. Yeah, but I don't know. I don't know what'll happen, so I don't know who works there. And I just said I miss Glen. Yes. Yeah, Glen's our man. He's, he's the one who kind of like started it rolling for us. He really did. You know (he did) back in the day when we were just showing up in the back. Yeah. And the cold. And the rain. Yeah. With a crate of kittens. He embraced that. Yes, he did. And it is because of him that we saw Snoop. It's because of him that we saw the skinny puppy. Skinny puppy who remembered us and remembered who opened for them when we were there with kittens. I know. And they remember that we had kittens 'cause this time we didn't have kittens. We had puppies. Yeah. And then Tara, remembered, what year it was that we were there with Snoop. Yeah. And I guess because for them it's like they go by years by who they played with or (mm-hmm) whatever. And so that's how they, they can remember so precisely because it. It's like how they organize their lives. Yeah. And she was there with Young and the famous. Naked and Famous. The Naked, the Young and the Famous No... Young and The Restless. The song is called Young Blood by the Naked and Famous. Yeah. I got confused. That's funny. Yeah. But yeah, so normally you would never bring Bottle Babies to a show. But we had both. We've done that before. Well, I mean with the kittens. Yeah, but normally not. Mm-hmm. Because it's not like we want them all fondled and... Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Held. It's not that, but we bring them because it's necessary. Right. So this time when we had Snoop, we had actually three week old bottle kittens and three week old puppy bottle puppies. So it was kind of interesting because there were both. Right. Yeah. You and Jessica had to bring them with you. Yeah. Especially, yeah. To feed the kittens. They'll be a little bit more independent like kittens you really bottle feed them only until they're about four weeks. Mm-hmm. And then, and then they're good. I mean, kittens actually mature faster in that regard than puppies. Yeah. They're litter box training at that point. They, I mean, their dexterity is so much better than the puppies. I mean, the puppies look like they're a bunch of drunks. Yeah. Running around in Slowmo, trying to hit each other and then missing because they've had one too many beers that night. Which are easier, do you think, to bottle feed kittens or puppies, which are more successful? I would say for me, for me personally, puppies are easier. I think they are. They're less, a little less fragile than kittens. Kittens are so fragile. Well, kittens, I tend to tube feed more often. Right. Well, 'cause it'll take you hours. If you don't, yeah. Tube feeding kittens is so much quicker. Mm-hmm. Especially in the middle of the night. Oh yeah. It's been a long time since I've bottle fed babies, so I can't actually remember because I only keep things in my head that are immediately important. How long do you go between feedings for kittens and puppies? Is it the same? It's very much the same. With newborns, it's an hour to two hours. And then I pretty much do like an hour a week, you know? Mm-hmm. So one week is one hour maybe, depending on how thrifty they are, how strong their suckle is. I mean, there's all these like different variables that you have to think about, right? You gotta think about the flow of the bottle. I mean the nipple, you know, 'cause you got the slow nipples, you got the medium flow. You got the fast flow. The slow flow is also variable based on the different types of bottle brands like Playtex is my favorite. Which I was surprised that you were using a human baby bottle with a human nipple for such small puppies that still worked for them. Oh yeah, yeah. Puppies are awesome that way. I guess I wouldn't say I surprised, but. Surprised because I don't know that I've ever seen you feed such small puppies (Yeah) before and I knew you used the Playtex bottles for bigger puppies, but I didn't know that you could use it for such small puppies. Oh, yeah. Yeah. As long as I have a strong suckle it's good. Papa Emertis, puppy, Papa as we call him, or just papa. He is named after Tobias's Forge. Tobias Forge his character in Ghost. So Papa Emertis, that's his persona. He is our most fragile of the litter. He is the one that I had to tube feed and he just graduated from tube feeding. I don't know exactly what his issue is. He's literally a quarter the size of the chubby, chubby, chubby two by four. Yeah. I think he finally hit half a pound. He and his sister have hit half a pound. But his sister is more thrifty than he is. She's never had to be bottle fed. Mm. I had to tube feed him 'cause he was lethargic. He just, Just didn't even care. Why don't you explain what tube feeding is? I bet a lot of people don't know what that is. So you get a good sized syringe. A 10 cc syringe works really well with these tiny chihuahua puppy types. Actually like Papa was so little that I first used a, just a three cc, syringe and then graduated to a six. And then when I stopped feeding him, he was taking, eight ccs. They don't know what the tube is either. So the tube is, it's a nasal gastric type of tube. You can use it, with humans as well. You have to be really careful when you tube feed, right, because there's two, holes that the tube can go into. And the tube is like, I wanna say like maybe a foot long, 12 inches. It's like a spaghetti. It's about the thickness of a spaghetti tube. It's, there's different... Well, The ones that you would use for the kittens or the puppies? At the puppies? Yeah. It's the tiny, the tiny ones. Yeah. It's the size of a spaghetti. Mm-hmm. And it's about a foot long. And one end has, you know, kind of a flange tube so that it can fit on the end of the syringe. Yes. And then the tip at the spaghetti end has two tiny little holes. Yeah. And when I tube feed, I have to use the formula that's liquid in a can. Yeah. 'cause the chunks. Because if I make formula, there's always like some grit or something. And when the tubes are super tiny, like the ones that I have to use for chihuahua mixed puppies, then it won't go through. No. It'll clog. Yeah, it'll clog. I mean the holes are like the size of like a pin prick in a balloon. They're very, very tiny. (Super. Yeah. Mm-hmm.) And, and so explain a little bit about how you have to, you know, put it down their throat and what you do. Yeah. So you have to be very careful. Like I said, there's two holes that you can actually slip the tube in. You've got your esophagus, and then you obviously have your... Windpipe. Yeah, that one I obviously, and then I forgot the name of it. So the esophagus obviously goes down to your stomach and that's what you want. You don't want it to go down the windpipe, but when you're putting a tube in, you cannot see which hole it's going down. Mm-hmm. Um, so, um, I used to tube feed Kormorants too. I used to when it had red tide. Yeah. I tube fed op possums. It was easier with Korans 'cause you just go down the side of their throat. Right. With puppies and kittens, I will actually do it diagonally (mm-hmm) across their mouth (mm-hmm) and so that it goes down one side because your windpipe is in the middle of the esophagus going down to your stomach. So if you just like slip the tube, like right in the middle, down the back of your throat, you're most likely gonna go into their lungs. Right. And you don't wanna do that. Mm-hmm. You have to measure the tube first to make sure that it goes in their stomach. And the way to measure that is to get the bottom. You put the tube on the outside, so you're like estimating where their stomach is, and you put the end of the spaghetti... Which underneath, underneath the sternum. (Mm-hmm) So you can feel their sternum. Mm-hmm. And then underneath that, that's kind of where their stomach is. So you put the bottom of the tube there and then you kind of go up and then do a little curve where their throat is, and then you mark the outside of it with a Sharpie. Mm-hmm. So you don't go past that line. Yeah. So that you know exactly the measurement of how far down it goes because you don't want it to obviously go too far but you don't want it to be too short either, because again, you've got risk of aspiration. Aspiration is when something goes down your windpipe (mm-hmm) that is not air. When it's milk, it can give them, aspiration pneumonia. (Mm-hmm) And a lot of animals can die from that. Yeah. And when I had the Tube feed Groot which was our cleft palate puppy, he was really bad about aspiration. We had some ER visits with him, but now I'm an expert. No, I'm joking. So once you have the sharpie mark on the outside of the tube, you feed it down their throat. And it helps sometimes when they swallow. Mm-hmm. And then it goes to the outside the corner of their mouth. You see where the mark is and then, then you kind of close the tube. Well, I do, I kind of close their mouth with the tube with my thumb. And then you want to pull back on the syringe a little bit and if the syringe just pulls back really easily, you are in their lungs. And then you better take that tube out. Mm-hmm. But, If it's in their stomach, there's a little bit of suction. So if you pull it back a little, it'll pop back in the syringe. Yes. And the syringe goes back into place. Yes. And then, you just slowly and gradually, I like to do like a little tap, tap with my thumb, and then it'll be like one little hash mark on the syringe as I tap it down (mm, mm-hmm) with them. And then when you remove it, you actually want to fold the tube that's on the outside of their mouth. You wanna close it, like pinch it. Mm-hmm. When you take it out. So it doesn't drip more down their throat. Down the windpipe Exactly. Mm-hmm. When you're like pulling it out so that it creates kinda like the hose, you know, when you crimp the hose. A kink, yeah. Mm-hmm. So this sounds like kind of long and complicated, but it actually takes like, I don't know if you're good at it, it takes like 15, 20 seconds, 30 seconds maybe. And that's way shorter than. Trying to feed (Struggling. Yeah) a like a kitten or a puppy that's like, you gotta feed them the whole bottle. And they won't suckle. Yeah. Especially if you have a lot of animals. But you don't want to tube feed them for convenience either. No. They need to suckle, they need that. But if they're not, then you have to feed them. So unfortunately at some point, even if it's easier to tube feed them, you do need to switch to the bottle. Yeah. So that they can suckle, because that's part of their development. Right. Which is what we're doing with Papa. Another thing is that you have to make sure that the temperature of the formula is a good temperature, like around, let's see, like 99, you know, ish, 99, a hundred ish. Where it's a, just a tadd bit warmer than your skin, because you don't want it to be too cold. No. And when it is warm and the kittens are screaming and they're like, rah, rah. And then the, the warm milk hits their stomach, they close their eyes and they look so happy. So content, I brought that up, but man, those kittens can chomp the catheters like so quickly. You can go through quite a few once they start getting teeth. Yeah. And that, and that's one of the dangers that you want them to start suckling by the time they have teeth. Mm-hmm. Because the last thing you want is them swallowing the tube. Which happened to me once. Yeah. And Bryan was like, oh my God. And like, we turned the kitten upside down and thankfully it coughed it out. Right. The, the kitten unfortunately did not make it. It was a little, a little black kitten, black and white. And he seemed like he was drowning every time he ate. And he, you had to hold him up the whole time and he didn't make it very long. Mm-hmm. And I took him from someone else who was struggling with like, more than that, like more of the letter. And I took, you know, like one or two of the sickest ones. Yeah. It was like he didn't have a stomach or something. It was like you'd get a little bit of milk down and he'd, he'd get this scared look on his face and he'd spit it up. Mm-hmm. And he looked terrified. And two of Papa's siblings, one of his sisters, Mary on a Cross and then his brother, Nameless Ghoul those are my problem children. Like I was not planning on taking this litter. When we took in the mom and the babies from the shelter, we never want puppies to be born in a shelter. Mm-hmm. We never want puppies to stay in a shelter. Their immune system's so low. Mm-hmm. They're so fragile. I mean, God loves shelters, but they're kind of like a Petri dish, you know? No matter how much you do, how hard you try, contaminants happen, right? And shelters just are not a good place for the, for them. And I'm like, oh, yeah. You know, it'll be a cakewalk because the mom will take care. I should have shut my mouth. Mm-hmm. And then, we have the fosters, you know, weigh them every day so I can look at their weights and see that they're gaining. Puppies and kittens both should be gaining at least 5% a day. Thanks to our, amazing foster family, Sammy and Trevor, he created an Excel spreadsheet that formulates. So it takes out all the calculations I have to do. I used to do them kind of in my head, so I'd be like, oh, you're gaining, oh, you're not gaining, you know, like, but there was no like, science behind it or whatever. Mm-hmm. I would tell Fosters, oh no, we gotta do this with this one, or whatever. But now they can visually see it because he formulated it so that when they hit 5%, It shades it green automatically, and then if it's under 5%, it shades it red automatically. You can visually just not even have to look at the the numbers and be like, gain, gain, gain, oh shit. Look at that red one. You know? That's gotta be really helpful for foster families. Yeah. Yeah. so, they weren't doing that well. They were kind of congested. I told the Foster to go take them to the vet and, ironically, I had to go to the vet after they were there and the vet was like, I'm really worried about this one little puppy. He's not doing well at all, which was Papa. So I went home from the vet with some extra puppies. Nameless Ghoul at Mary on a Cross are the ones who are basically regurgitating almost everything that they. Eat. And so like Nameless Ghoul he is starving all the time. Mm-hmm. And his suckle is very strong. And with no teeth, he will grab that nipple and just hold onto it when I try to take it away. But he can't have too much, or like the milk just flows out of his nose and out of his mouth. That's what happened to the kitten. Yeah. And Mary, Same and I'll have to sit there and I'll have to pat them. But now I have a system it's a timing thing. Mm-hmm. And then I have to measure how much, but they cannot have more than an ounce at a time. And even then it's a little iffy. Mm-hmm. They may regurgitate just a little bit, but not like copious amounts. Do you feed, do you feed them more often then? Because they can only do an ounce? Yes. So, especially nameless because he's so hungry all the time. Yeah, yeah. I don't envy you because, you have to get up in the middle of the night and do this, and that really wrecks me. I know it's not good for you either, but you are so used to it that you pretty much do it... In my sleep. Of habit. I literally think that even if Pate doesn't have puppies to feed in the middle of the night, that she gets up and goes through the motions of doing it, and then goes back to sleep because she is so accustomed to it. On the other hand, I can't do that. Yeah. I do it in my sleep. I mean, and I talk in my sleep too. No, like seriously. Once I think Jess called me. Mm-hmm. Because a foster came early and my fosters should know never, not before nine o'clock, right? Mm-hmm. But he showed up early and she called me and I know that she called, I know that words came outta my mouth, but I can't remember the conversation. Mm-hmm. I'm hoping it was okay. It probably involves some expletives about why they were calling you so early. I know. I never, I look at the, the phone and I'm like, that's like 10 minutes to nine and I'm gonna wait until nine. Well, especially if I have a feeding at like five or six. Well, I mean, I used to do that for the squirrels, but I think after doing it during the pandemic, I think it actually like really screwed up my sleep schedule. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And so then I would wake up every day at three in the morning. Oh God. Yeah. Ready to feed squirrels and there was no squirrels to feed. Right. And so I will still say it took me two years at least to kind of get back to normal and then, I will say that there are still times where I just wake up and I can't go back to sleep. I mean, there could be various reasons for this, but I noticed at first when I started regularly, bottle feeding the squirrels. But what kind of formula do you use for squirrels? It is, is it kitten or puppy? I think it's puppy and then it is mixed with, I always forget, see, this is the thing I only keep what is absolutely required in my mind. And I have to ask her every time. She's like, but you've been doing this for so long. I'm like, I know, but I just don't keep relevant information. I think it's puppy formula. Uhhuh. Yes. Because she gives us kitten formula. So it's puppy formula, and then it's also a zoo type that's for multiple animals. And then what's the other one? There's Zoonotics and Fox Valley. So it's three different kinds of things and then whipping cream, heavy whipping cream. Okay. So there's a special, you know, ratio that you do. Mm-hmm. And, so for the squirrels, if their eyes aren't open, then they need to be fed every four hours. Mm-hmm. So 7 11, 3, 1. What's seven 11? Oh my God. Every three hours. Every, no, four hours. Oh, every 4, 3, 7 11. 3, 7, 11, 3, 7, 11. Okay. So all the way around the clock. Okay. But if their eyes are open, then you can stop with the 11 o'clock at night and start with the seven o'clock in the morning, which is what I do. Okay. Yeah. I only take them if their eyes are open. If their eyes are open, I cannot take them if their eyes are closed. And it sucks because sometimes she'll have 150 babies that literally like she must stop feeding the last one and just go start feeding the other because it's gotta take just about that long. That's so crazy. Yeah, I can't, I can't do that. As much as I love squirrels, I can't do that. Mm. Yeah. I mean, it's tough for sure. I was lucky 'cause when I got these guys in particular, their eyes were just starting to open, so I was like, oh, okay. Every two to three hours. Yeah. It's painful. Well, and then the thing is, is like they were a little bit older, so it's stimulating them to go to the bathroom. Oh. Which can, which can take a lot longer Yeah. Than just bottle feeding. That's actually the hardest part. Yeah. And because you wanna make sure, you have to make sure that they eliminate. Yeah. If they don't eliminate, they can actually die. Yeah. They'll explode. Literally explode. The squirrels, they needed too for a while. I mean, even when their eyes are open, sometimes you have to help them (Mm-hmm) at first. But then they just start going everywhere. Yeah. And even when you're not trying to stimulate them, they'll pee on you in front of Snoop. Mm-hmm. So, mm-hmm. Yeah. That was great. Yeah. Pate did get peed on, Right. Fucking before Snoop. Yeah. Right before he came out. But, She did a good job of, of doing like a model pose where it's like crossing her legs and bending her hips sideways. So it's like you can't tell in the picture. The big old pee stain. Uhhuh. Well, and I brought extra clothes and I left them there, but Christie was rearranging the boxes and she took my clothes out and so they ended up at home and I was like, Oh, I need to put those back because... Yeah. I need, need to add. Yeah, They need to stay there. Yeah. I should add like extra clothes in the van, just in case. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Especially... Yeah, you don't wanna have poop on you when you're trying to meet like Rob Zombie or something, so Yeah. Please remember... Rob. I think I should understand. I know, I think Piggy would understand too. So for different animals you might have to position them differently. What do you do for that? A lot of people think that when you feed a baby, you're gonna feed it like a human baby on their back, and that's actually one of the worst positions that you can put, a puppy or a kitten in. You should have them on their bellies. Just like when they nurse from their mother, they're on their belly stretch forward. You can prop 'em up a little bit because you know, they're crawling all over each other and yes, you will see the occasional puppy nursing upside down, but the flow of their mother's milk is different than the flow of a bottle. No matter what flow of the nipple you get slow, medium, fast. It is totally different than mother's milk. It comes out a lot slower and it's easier for them to suckle so you don't have to burp. I mean, if you think about it, you don't have to burp a puppy who nurses from his mother, but you have to burp a puppy when you bottle feed, because they're gulping, they're gasping, they're getting a lot of air in. Whereas with a mother, they don't. And so it's the same thing when you're bottle feeding them you cannot have them on their back. They have to be on their belly stretch forward. I like to, prop 'em up on my, on my leg with their butt facing, like on my thigh, facing my torso, I guess. And, then I will put the bottle in my hand with the palm of my hand underneath, their chest, so that their arms, their forearms are on my palm. So it's kind of like a 30 degree angle towards the bottle or something like that? Yeah. Because you're propping them a little bit. There's a slight, yeah, there's a slight elevation. And I find that's the most effective with the puppies. And then as they get older, the mothers actually start standing as they start weaning. So as they get older, you'll see that your elevation gets higher and higher. Oh, I didn't know that. I mean, it makes sense. Yeah. But I wouldn't have thought about that, that I just thought that they got more mobile and so they would try more things to get the milk. Yeah, no. And... But no, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. And then sometimes they'll sit and nurse. One of the most challenging things is, the kitten kneading, right? So they keep pushing their paws against. And it's, you know, instinctual that this is how they, insti instigate their mother. Wait, instigate? No. No. Initiate. Initiate, yeah. The milk flow. So it stimulates the mother to continue producing milk with their, you know, kind of like paddling motion. Can I just say that I love to watch you do it even though there's no video and everything she just is describing, she's acting out with her hands. Maybe one day we'll get a video. We're too boring for video. It's just a bunch of us sitting there. Oh yeah. Well, Axel, what's Axel doing? See, even He's boring. Yeah. Axel is kind of boring. No, he's a great dog, but he's very lazy. Oh my gosh. Lazy. The lazy. He's not husky. No, he's he's misrepresenting. The laziest husky ever. Yeah. Yeah. Anyone wants to donate some wisdom panel? d n A test. We'll be happy to to try one on axle to see if he truly is a husky. Yeah. Maybe he just wears the costume. Right. And he's really like a toy poodle or something. I was gonna say even Papillons have like more energy than he does. But yeah, so the stimulation when they try to stimulate Your hand or against the bottle. Sometimes they kind of push the bottle away, which can make it a little bit tricky, especially with the ones who don't have really great suckle. And then you find they have a little ADD so when the nipple goes out of their mouth, then it's challenging to get them to suckle again. So did you know that when you bottle feed- even tube feed- you have to burp them just like human babies? Why can't babies burp? I don't know. When they're nursing from their mother, you won't hear them burping. But when you feed them from a bottle, I guess their suckle just isn't that tight around, you know, like a human nipple or, or fake nipple or miracle nipple. And because with the kittens, we use a syringe and a miracle nipple, which is like pretty successful, more so I find then, the ones that they make. Yeah, the ones they make for puppies and kittens are crap. And then, oh my God, the miracle N made those, they're very expensive, but that's the only thing you can use to feed a squirrel, I tell you. And then it definitely works best for kittens. Oh yeah. It totally works best for kittens. And then, like I said, I prefer the Playtex brand for the puppies. I've always had success with those. Even when they're really, really little, you can fit that in their mouth. Did you just not see me like you saw me? No. No. I know, but like, I just, I'm just surprised. It seems so big. Wow. I You didn't have to start with a miracle nipple and then move up? No, I don't think I've ever used a miracle nipple. For a puppy. No. Huh? Yeah, that seems crazy to me. And that's the thing is like, they're like little freaking, I don't know, like little vampire things that just unhinge their, they're like snakes that unhinge their jaws and get around that nipple. Huh. I'm trying to think about all the chihuahua ones, but you know what, maybe when I have 'em, like super little, I have to tube feed them. What about, I remember Eminem and Rianna, you had to, you had to feed them, but I don't, I, I don't remember what kind of bottle you used or what kind of nipple. Playtex. Mm, I think so. Yeah. And they were tiny. Eminem was tiny. Oh, and then his name's Pablo now. Oh. And he, their family adopted, David Rose. Yes. And they named her Rosie. And Eminem aka Pablo is now starting to have seizures. Aw. So Rosie, is his seizure dog, so if he has a seizure, she goes and she cuddles next to him. So he has a service dog of his own, which we talked about service animals. That's like Sabrina. Oh yeah, so that's her ESA. Mm-hmm. But that's, Eva's third ESA. Oh. Unfortunately, her third ESA is a shy girl. Mm-hmm. Because her first two ESAs were outgoing. Yeah, Eva's a dog that we have currently, she's a husky mix and she... Was chained up. So she's really, really shy. Mm-hmm. Very sweet. Mm-hmm. But very, very wary of people initially. Yeah. She's learning how to be pet now. Mm-hmm. And she knows that treats are in the kitchen. Yeah. She likes the... When you're cooking. She likes the comforts. Mm-hmm. Yes. She doesn't want to go outside anymore and hang out, (oh my gosh) in the rain or anything like that. But she was living on the chain outside. Yeah. Well, I mean, but now she's like a primadonna. Oh my gosh. She loves her raised bed. She's like, these cots are amazing. Uhhuh. Yeah. She loves it. How quickly do they forget. I know, right? Just slept down the streets. I know. Like Matthew, the street dog. I'm like, go outside. I don't wanna be outside anymore. So I know that, some brands of formula are gonna be better than others. I also know that there's goat milk formula (mm-hmm) that you like. Why don't you tell people about your preferences? I like actually doing a combination. When it comes to the puppies even kittens, I'll throw in a dash of goat milk, but for the puppies, I make my own formula using goat milk and the goat milk, yogurt and egg. And then I make it 50 50. I'll buy commercial and, whether Commercial goat milk yogurt? No. Commercial, commercial puppy formula, whether it's, whether it's Esbilac, or tailspin is a good one. It's a newer one that I... Yeah, I've never heard of it before. Yeah. It's goat. Okay. I don't know that they have cow. I haven't seen if they do, I haven't seen cow, but tailspin, is a new one that I like using, and so just those two is black and, the tailspin. And I do it 50 50, like 50% my formula, 50% commercial formula. And what's your formula? Goat milk, yogurt and egg. Yeah. Like just raw egg. Yeah, just the yolk. Oh, that's weird. Okay. Protein. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it works. I get fat ass babies. One of the reasons why I do that is because when I make my own formula, sometimes it constipates them and it's because it's so rich. Mm-hmm. Or whatever. On the flip side with the commercial formula, I see a lot of... Diarrhea. What do you do if they had diarrhea? What would you give them? Well, first I'd do a fecal. Mm-hmm. Because sometimes it can be parasites. We did learn the hard way that puppies can have. Coccidia, even bottle feeders. One minute they were fine. The next minute, I lost two and it was pretty fast and brutal. Yeah. But had I known then we could have treated them, with Albon or ponazuril or something. For coccidia in particular. There's another one, Clostridium is that the other bacteria or something that they can have, what's it called? cryptosporidium. Cryptosporidium. That's colostrum. And Cryptosporidium in one word. Yeah, cryptosporidium. But that one's, that's not normally puppies, right? Well, no. I mean, puppies can get it, but it's not something that we see a lot of. No, but there was another weird one for puppies. What was it? I mean, for really young puppies. Well, we get like typical Giardia, um, coccidia was one of the ones that we learned about, like I said, the hard way. And then I think you're right about the Clostridium. Yeah, Clostridium is the one I'm pretty sure. Well, it's like e coli. Yes. I'm pretty sure that's what it's called. Yeah. Clostridium difficile. Oh, that's a really bad one. But that's more a people one. Yeah. But we had puppies with that once. Yeah. But it's not that often. No, no, it's not often. But I remember it being really weird. Right. But it wasn't something that we've seen and that that was life threatening. Like coccidia was life threatening. You can clear it with meds, but again, with baby babies bottle feeding. Once we found out what was going on, we did save the rest of the litter, but that was hard. And that was a big litter. And then that hit me hard because we lost the mother. Mm. Mm-hmm. And so we only had the babies 'cause the mother died the day before we were gonna get her. She had like a heart attack or something like that. She just collapsed and she was gone and everyone was like, oh my God. I felt horrible about that, because, we should have gotten her sooner. But I mean, you know, timing is sometimes it... Sometimes we can't help it. Yeah. But, that was horrible. What do you use for kitten milk? Kitten milk I just do a dash of goat milk. Mm-hmm. But with what brands? With K M R, I was gonna say sack. They, um, KMR is, they is produced, blah. It's the same company, Uhhuh, but KMR for kittens and Esbilac is for puppies. That's weird that they name them different. Like Kmr is obviously kitten milk replacer. Right. But what is Esbilac. Exactly. I know, right? Like why isn't it P M R, KMR and pmr? That would make it easy. Exactly. Yeah. But with the kittens, I'll do the goat milk 'cause goat milk has a probiotics in it, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Or prebiotics or whatever. It's good for your stomach, supposedly. And then I find that it is better for them than cow's milk. So anytime I can get like a goat milk kind of formula, even commercial, I'm gonna go with the goat milk before I go with the cow milk. Yeah. I know the A S P C A has some really good tutorials online, for helping people, especially bottle feeding kittens and bottle feeding puppies because obviously they are trying to broaden the spectrum of people that are able to take care of these kinds of animals. 'cause in our organization, what we have, like a handful of people that could do either puppies or kits. Yeah. And the biggest thing that you have to worry about, especially when you're a beginner, is aspiration pneumonia. Mm-hmm. Yeah, which, which we're kind of dealing with right now. Yeah. It, it happens so easily though, so easily. I mean, even as careful as I am, like with the squirrels or something, like sometimes you'll be holding the syringe and they'll just suck really hard. And it'll suck at this plunger Right. Outta your hand. And, and all of a sudden then they're like, ah. Mm-hmm. And they, they spit up the milk because they've sucked down way too much. Right. So I actually have to pull back on the plunger and hold it with tension. Mm-hmm. So that I'm making sure they don't pull it outta my hand. Right. I don't really have a lot of aspiration pneumonia with the kittens though, with the miracle nipple. Correct. Kittens, it's not as common. But... Not with that miracle nipple. Yeah. That miracle nipple. It's a miracle. Yeah. Like, I mean, it. It's, that's why it's called that. Yeah. But you know, like for the squirrels too, the smaller the syringe you use (mm-hmm) then the less likely they can suck down a lot of stuff. Mm-hmm. So it's easier when they get bigger (mm-hmm) to use a bigger syringe, like three or five. Mm-hmm. But there is a chance that they'll suck it right outta your hand. So I actually like to reuse the syringes after, washing them and then they get a little sticky. Yes. Yeah. And then, then they are harder to do that. Yeah. And then puppies, like I talked about it before, like you really have to be careful with the speed of the nipple and really pay attention to if it's a slow drip, the medium flow and then the rapid flow. Well, and if they do aspirate, then you have to hold them upside down and kind of pat them on their back. Yep. Mm-hmm. So that you can try and get the milk to come back up and (Right) and for them to sneeze it out or spit it out. Yeah. But it's gonna happen to every single person that tries to bottle feed. But the key is to learn what does it and what prevents it. Mm-hmm. And, don't make the same mistake twice. Right. But the A S P C A has some really good stuff and you know, it's to encourage people to give it a try and foster. Definitely check it out. I feel like we more often need, bottle feeders for kittens than for puppies. Well, it's because you get that whole like, burst of kitten season (mm-hmm) in the summer, the ground starts to thaw. You know, mamas wanna get their groove on who aren't spayed, and sometimes they get their groove on multiple times in the summer, and so that's multiple litters. And sometimes like these outdoor mothers, it's hard out there on these cats between coyotes, poisons getting shot, getting hit by cars. I mean it's dangerous for outdoor cats, so sometimes we get a lot of bottle babies. Mm-hmm. Yeah. 'cause they'll find the kittens, but the mom will be gone and, you know, they don't know how long the mom's been gone and, or they'll watch them and know that she's been gone for two days, or they'll find him suddenly in a garbage can or, (mm-hmm) something like that. But yeah, they're, you know, it's more often that we find abandoned kittens without a mom than puppies. The thing is, puppies don't really have a season per se, you know, like a lot of dogs may be indoor or they have different cycles. Like dogs will typically go into heat twice a year, but not necessarily at the same time. Mm-hmm. So it's not like, oh look, it's puppy season, not the way it is with kitten season. And the reason, like I said, the reason why we have kitten season is because the outdoor cats that we see so many kittens from, nature says, okay, you know what? You're gonna give birth and the ground is frozen. The babies are gonna freeze, so let's just not. And so once that ground starts thawing, then Yeah. So it's... Their body kicks in. Yeah. It's more weather related than puppies are. And the thing is, is that, you've got seasons up here, but you know, California's always having kittens. Well, that's it for bottle feeding babies. Pate is the queen of bottle feeding puppies, and we have some pretty awesome fosters who are bottle feeding kitten queens. Mm-hmm. So we just wanna thank them for all their hard work. So much hard work. And yeah, Pate doesn't get thanked enough. So thank you, Pate. Especially because I can't do it. So, this, I, I am Jme. I'm Jme. This is Pate. This is our podcast Rescue Shit. Rock On. Rescue on.