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Lamb nibble buckets
Author: Penny Stapleton 
Date:   03-09-13 12:13

I have been using (and recommending) Premier’s lamb nipple buckets for years. I have 6 myself and they are pretty much in use year round as I produce lambs in small numbers (20-30) all but 2 months of the year. The last few people I referred to Premier were very disappointed in the buckets…..couldn’t seem to get them to stop leaking and they couldn’t get the lambs to drink out of them. I decided to get some extra valve units and put a few buckets together myself for others. I also was out of nipples. I last ordered maybe 30 (natural latex not the rubber ones) of them about 5 years ago. Somehow this time I muddled myself up when I was ordering and only ordered 3 instead of 30. That’s the only good part about this story. When I tried to put a bucket together (using the Premiers bucket I also ordered) and in fact tried to put the nipples on some of my older buckets I had to use 3 O rings to get them to stop leaking. Worse still is these “new” to me nipples are not lamb friendly at all. You would need 20 lbs of pressure to get any milk on them. Certainly no 2 day old lamb I have ever had would be able to suck successfully on them. You can’t even get milk out by “hand stripping” which I have always done to insure there is milk in the nipple when new lambs first latch on. PLEASE can you bring back the old softer nipples? No they likely don’t last as long but at least they work. BTW I had my neighbor who is a mechanic measure the diameter with calipers and the base is 15% bigger around which is why they leak. He’s says this is a lot and anything designed to fit the old nibble won’t fit these properly. If you crank down hard on the valve units (instead of putting in more O rings) they just bulge out and through the front part of the unit. There is just too much rubber to fit properly and the nipples are too thick for the lambs to successfully suck out of. One last thing…..do you have any thinner nipples of any kind that fit the valves??
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Re: Lamb nibble buckets
Author: gordon 
Date:   03-11-13 11:42

Hi Penny,
Latex teats are a problem because of the way they are made. It is very hard for the manufacture to make them the same each batch. We have sent many teats back to them over the years that were too thick or too thin. We have tried to stop selling them and people get angry and want them even with the problems.
We now have it worked out with the manufacture that they will do a little more quality control there and we do it here also. Hopefully this will limit the number of bad teats that go out to the customers. If you get some that will not work for you just let Premier know and we will try to replace them for you.

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Re: Lamb nibble buckets
Author: Penny Stapleton 
Date:   03-13-13 13:13

Thanks Gordon and thanks Premier for standing behind what you sell.

I was wondering what you are recommending instead of the latex nipples? I also got some rubber ones (I use those to "block" nipples when I only have one bucket lamb and don't want others who have no need for replacer but are just opportunists doing the "monkey see monkey do" bit and double dipping instead of eating creep). From my perspective and I think I can say the lamb's as well they are worse. What is Premier using and if it's the rubber ones how do you get 2 day old lambs to suck from them? I've had no luck (same with the think latex ones I posted about originally. I occasionally have barn cats who also decide to belly up to the milk bar and they don't even go for the rubber ones..
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Re: Lamb nibble buckets
Author: gordon 
Date:   03-13-13 15:41

Rubber or latex are all we have, so we start them on the latex and try to change them over to the rubber when they are old enough. I know that the latex are not perfect but we need them for the smaller lambs.
As for the cats you can use the plastic cups that comes with the milk replacer to keep them away from the teats. Cut a 1.5" hole in the bottom of the cup and put it on the unit and screw the teat and nut on inside of the cup. This will allow lambs to nurse but cats will not be able to reach the teat.
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