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would you change 1/3 of the water source to boil water to prevent kidney stone

Happy Hopping

Wise Old Thumper
my 2 buns are around 7 to 8 year old, they have 3 water source. 1 water bowl downstair, and 2 water bowl upstair. In this city, the water has quite high calcium level, so I am thinking to prevent kidney stone, would it be a good idea to give (cooled off) boil water to prevent kidney stone?

So they still drink regular water from the 2 other water bowl, i.e., about 1/3 of the water source is boiled water. Do you guys think this is a good idea?
 
I personally wouldn't see the point unless you do it for all the water bowls.

I used to have to do this for the ferrets as one had surgery every 6 months to remove bladder stones and spent 2/3 of her life with only one working kidney (the other was covered in mineral deposits).
 
Boiling water does not decrease calcium content - it actually increases it slightly, as the volume of the water decreases after boiling, but the minerals remain.

You need a water filter to reduce calcium, or switch to low calcium bottled water.

edit: this link covers permanent and temporary hardness and boiling https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_water
 
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my 2 buns are around 7 to 8 year old, they have 3 water source. 1 water bowl downstair, and 2 water bowl upstair. In this city, the water has quite high calcium level, so I am thinking to prevent kidney stone, would it be a good idea to give (cooled off) boil water to prevent kidney stone?

So they still drink regular water from the 2 other water bowl, i.e., about 1/3 of the water source is boiled water. Do you guys think this is a good idea?

Why do you think boiling water would alter the calcium content and prevent kidney stones?

I use filtered water for myself and rabbits, and they have never had a calcium issue.
 
If boiling water helped with water hardness, no-one would ever buy water filters to make their cups of tea and coffee nicer! We have water here classed as 'very hard' and there is a film of calcium on top when you make a cup of tea if it isn't filtered.

I use Deeside low calcium bottled water for my guinea pigs, and Ruby still got stones! :roll:
 
They are going to have far higher dietary intake of calcium in food than from the drinking water alone. I would suggest looking at reducing high calcium food sources, if this is a diagnosed / pre-existing condition.
 
They are going to have far higher dietary intake of calcium in food than from the drinking water alone. I would suggest looking at reducing high calcium food sources, if this is a diagnosed / pre-existing condition.


Current thinking is the opposite of this.

Veg is full of water and the calcium content much reduced. Pellets can contain calcium, but of course depends on the brand and how many are given.

Water makes a great deal of difference, as I've seen over the years using filtered and non-filtered water and having the rabbits' urine tested.
 
When we lived in Cambridge several buns had bladder sludge etc issues to do with the extremely extremely high calcium content of the water,

We just bought very cheap low calcium bottled water (check online to find the lowest in calcium - at that time Tescos own was pretty low but may have changed).

Its the water not the veg thats important!
 
When we lived in Cambridge several buns had bladder sludge etc issues to do with the extremely extremely high calcium content of the water,

We just bought very cheap low calcium bottled water (check online to find the lowest in calcium - at that time Tescos own was pretty low but may have changed).

Its the water not the veg thats important!

Agreed :thumb:
 
When we lived in Cambridge several buns had bladder sludge etc issues to do with the extremely extremely high calcium content of the water,

We just bought very cheap low calcium bottled water (check online to find the lowest in calcium - at that time Tescos own was pretty low but may have changed).

Its the water not the veg thats important!

Tesco value water is just filtered tap water, which I think is bottled in perthshire. I know perthshire has soft water, so it should be quite soft if you did choose to use that.

I do agree that boiling is unlikely to reduce calcium. Water evaporates off when you boil, but all the calcium will stay behind, which is why the calcium content per ml of water increases (if that makes sense). Filtering should help reduce the hardness a bit, so it's up to you whether to buy filtered soft water or filter local water yourself.
 
Happy Hopping isn't based in the UK.

But for those who are, there used to be two low priced bottled waters in Tescos, and one was low calcium. That is no longer sold, and the other is definitely not low calcium - you can see it floating about in the water if you boil it.

The lowest one is Deeside, but that isn't easy to get. Sno Water, which was really low, seems to have disappeared. Volvic is easy to get hold of and low though.
 
If you're in a rural area without high levels of air pollutants, try rain water :) It's free and judging by cat/dogs drinking out of a puddle is much tastier than a water bowl. Depending on how you collect/store boiling it would be a good idea to then remove any bugs. It will be very soft as water picks up the calcium from the ground it flows through.

If you wanted to remove calcium from tap you'd need to use distilled/reverse osmosis, which removes dissolved solids. For drinking it's then usually remineralised to a certain extent (or you mix it proportionally with tap to put some minerals back in.
 
I'm interested in this as my water (Cambs) is very hard (I.e. Lime comes out of the iron when you use the steaming function!), should I be looking at bottled water for my buns?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
I'm interested in this as my water (Cambs) is very hard (I.e. Lime comes out of the iron when you use the steaming function!), should I be looking at bottled water for my buns?


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

If your bunnies don't have known issues, I'd be tempted to use a Brita filter for their water instead. It doesn't remove a huge amount of calcium in very hard water (you can tell this by how often you have to descale the kettle still!), but it definitely helps.

I do think that with very hard water you have to change the filter more often than they suggest though.
 
Just to add, getting an RO filter to filter you own is expensive so some fish shops, particularly if they sell marines (salt water fish), may sell RO water - that's pure water with no calcium etc. in. We use it to mix up salt water to specific parameters and for keeping soft water fish as we're in a hard water area - I think in some places in the states they use it on drinking water.

You can then dilute your tap water with it e.g. 50% tap and 50% RO would lower the calcium by half.

I wouldn't bother for normal rabbits but if you're in a hard water area and your bun has calcium issues you could cut it right down.
 
I was told that boil water break down the calcium content within the water. Isn't that true?

regardless, for middle age to senior buns, how many of you agree with my attempted arrangement? For that matter, how many of you are using this arrangement to prevent too much calcium in your bun's body?

i.e., at least some of the water sources has to be distill water / spring water of there is no calcium ?

by the same token, an average person / animal should still need the ?? bacteria in the water, so I don't want to totally filter out all 3 water bowl even if I have a RO system
 
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I was told that boil water break down the calcium content within the water. Isn't that true?
No: boiling does not alter the chemical composition of the water: any dissolved metals will still be present as ions. It is useful for killing things which can't stand high temperatures but not much else :)

De-ionised water has these ions removed, but I am unsure how safe that is for consumption (I know the bottle I have for filling a bubble-lamp reckons it's not). Demineralised water is not truly the same and may or may not be harmful.
 
I'm not sure what you're saying really. Boiling and distilling are not the same thing. As I understand it (and I am no scientist!), boiling water creates steam, which distillation collects. There is no calcium in the steam. Therefore, if all you do is boil the water, you've lost a certain volume of the water in the steam (with no minerals in), so the minerals remain in the boiled water.

A water distiller would remove the calcium (and all other minerals), if that's what you wanted to achieve. Boiling doesn't reduce calcium for the reasons already said.
 
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