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Watering Help

S

Shawsea

New Kit
An apology in advance if this should've went in "Care" section new to this forum so I will figure it out.
I just "rescued" (hate that word) a bunny so my experience is very limited, but have had animals my whole life so confident I can provide a good home with some education. My question is about providing water, when I went to my food supplier I grabbed one of those upside down bottles for water that hangs on cage wire, but my bunny didn't seem to drink out of it, I tapped it to show it there was water etc, but nothing. Oh and to be clear I don't mean I sat there for 2 minutes and he didn't drink, I mean over the course of the day, this concerned me so I grabbed an old stainless puppy bowl filled it, dropped it in the cage, and he immediately drank it. The down side is everytime I look in the cage the bowl is full of shaving, food pellets etc, is this ok? Is there something I can do to encourage the bottle?
Also I should include I am confident this was a rabbit someone released and not a Feral rabbit as he is almost completely tame from the start.
Thanks for your Time
 
Ours both prefer a bowl to the bottle too but we always have both so if they muck up the bowl they have the option of the cleaner water in the bottle. We use a ceramic dish as it's heavier and less likely to get tipped over.
 
A lot of people on this forum use bowls. It is more natural than a bottle and sometimes raabbits cannot get enough water quick enough from a bottle. They also drink more from a bottle, which is good for them. Yes the downside is they can get messy very quickly. Rabbits usually drink after eating then you might not see them drink again during the day. Some rabbits drink more than others. Your rabbit seems more used to a bowl.
 
We have both here, Stephen finds it much easier to drink out of a bowl but will drink out of the bottle too if he wants to. Is there anywhere in the cage you could put the water so it won't be as likely to get muck in it? Ie, ours is on a raised platform on it's own so isn't in contact with sawdust and food etc. Or maybe you could clear a small area around the water bowl, maybe put it on some newspaper to reduce the amount of stuff being flicked into it?
 
Mine prefer a bowl too. I put mine near the wall, on newspaper so that it is less likely to get knocked over or full of stuff.

I swear by ceramic hamster food bowls: they're cheap, heavy enough that they can't be knocked over easily and, if they do manage to knock it over, there is not enough water to flood the place with.
 
If you have wire available to attach it to, could you not use a coop cup? It could be high enough off the floor to avoid getting mucky but low enough for bun to drink from.
 
Shawsea said:
An apology in advance if this should've went in "Care" section new to this forum so I will figure it out.
I just "rescued" (hate that word) a bunny so my experience is very limited, but have had animals my whole life so confident I can provide a good home with some education. My question is about providing water, when I went to my food supplier I grabbed one of those upside down bottles for water that hangs on cage wire, but my bunny didn't seem to drink out of it, I tapped it to show it there was water etc, but nothing. Oh and to be clear I don't mean I sat there for 2 minutes and he didn't drink, I mean over the course of the day, this concerned me so I grabbed an old stainless puppy bowl filled it, dropped it in the cage, and he immediately drank it. The down side is everytime I look in the cage the bowl is full of shaving, food pellets etc, is this ok? Is there something I can do to encourage the bottle?
Also I should include I am confident this was a rabbit someone released and not a Feral rabbit as he is almost completely tame from the start.
Thanks for your Time
Click to expand...
g

Some rabbits prefer a bowl to the bottle,if you want the bun to get used to a bottle you could put both in his hutch for a while and see if he gets used to the idea of a bottle. The amount of water rabbits drink depends on how much fresh veg or forage they eat as they get a lot of moisture from that, on the days my buns have fresh food they drink less water than on the days they have just their hay and pellets. I wouldn't advise using sawdust or woodshavings in the hutch,it's not a natural product for bunnies in the wild and in domestic rabbits can cause a condition called snuffles which is a respiratory illness ,sawdust/shavings and dusty hay are the main causes, that's why many hay manufacturers remove the dust from their hay and you may get used to seeing the words 'dust extracted' on hay products, but for now as you have only just got the bunny try offering him his water from a dish as well as a bottle and see which one gets drunk from the most.
 
Thank you all so much for your time and answering, it really doesn't matter to me and the consensus seems go with both so I will do that. Again I apologize for my lack of knowledge I really didn't set out to buy a rabbit, or I would have prepared better before purchasing, but I'm certainly not going to take him to the SPCA, he was crawling all over me today:love:
The only thing I can offer in return is dog advice:shock:, so feel free to knock if you need some 8)
One last thing you brought up bedding Gothymom or anyone else, since I was going supply shopping tomorrow, I'm using, because of donation, a product called Carefresh Natural for bedding, I know this will probably mean nothing to a pile of non local people so it is described as clean cellulose fibre, free of ink, dye, clay and chemical contaminant. Also "Healthy & Dust Free". Someone also donated Northern White Pine that has been "Cleaned several times removing dust and fines that can be harmful for your pet."
Feel free to comment
 
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