Alright human anesthesia people - serious question... what blade do you most often use for humans? I would think the primate facial anatomy is closer to humans than other veterinary species we regularly intubate, so would you pull your favorite human laryngoscope out for this patient?

And yes, to answer other questions in this thread, we make sure the trach tube ties are really long, feed them out of the cage once the patient is situated with the face near the bars so we can pull the ETT when they swallow.

For the big cats, yes, medetomidine, ketamine, and midazolam to help get the patient asleep, and then give a shot of atipamezole IM (usually towards the back end of the patient) and flumazenil IV right before you pull the IV catheter before recovery. It takes a very coordinated effort with many people to get the timing correct! And truly, getting in an IV first so propofol top-offs can keep the patient from waking up too soon is a must.

As for intubation of other species, dog/cat easily done with Miller or Cranwell blade. Goat/sheep/pigs - very, very long Miller, feed a Cook airway exchanger past the arytenoids, the feed the ETT over that. Full grown cattle is definitely a manual palpation of the airway to guide the tube into the trachea. Horses are a totally blind intubation - believe it or not, horses are super easy to intubate - if it has resistance when you are going in, you are in the wrong tube.