Rabbit breeders, regardless of the type of rabbits they choose for breeding, understand that the water regime for these animals is especially important. Ensuring a constant supply of clean, high-quality water is the responsibility of the owner of the farm. This can only be done using high-quality drinking equipment. In this article, we will talk about what kind of drinkers for rabbits are, how to use them on your own.
A commercially available rabbit drinker or a custom made fixture? Consider the available options made by the hands of farmers
You can read everything about breeding, raising and feeding rabbits on our article. here.
Drinker characteristics
What will be a drinking bowl assembled from scrap materials? First of all, the rabbit drinker should fulfill its main function, providing pets with the opportunity to drink water at any time. This is what will be considered good.
Novice breeders often make the same mistake, trying to adapt the things at hand to create a drinker and a feeder: glass containers, canned jars, a pipe, etc.
But the main difference between a quality drinking device is the presence of a working mechanism that meets all the required parameters, the main of which are:
- The ability to conveniently and easily fill the available volume with water.
- The presence of a sufficient volume, which should be the liter rate and above.
- Protection of the liquid from any type of contamination.
- Reliability of installation and fastenings, necessary to exclude possible breakdowns that arise when rabbits move around the cage.
- Convenience of design for animals.
- Having a slightly larger size than the rabbit itself.
Such a list of requirements is easily explained by the fact that rabbits are extremely active animals that, even in a spacious cage, are able to overturn a container of water. Because of this, a strong fastening of the drinker is a mandatory attribute of the design, which simply cannot be neglected.
Often, the owners of rabbit farms make sure of the need for special drinkers after they have tried to use loose containers or improvised means. Therefore, the reservoir from which the rabbits are to drink must be securely installed.
Another problem that all breeders of these animals have is that the excrement of the rabbits ends up where the drink is. Of course, this water, when consumed, can negatively affect the health of the pet, because it can pick up the virus and get sick.
However, animals are unlikely to choose to drink such a liquid, but will only create a new problem for the owner, since it will be necessary to frequently renew the volume of water. But when you create a drinking cup on your own, if you take into account such points as its height and shape, it will not be difficult to avoid this trouble.
Features of nipple drinking rabbits in winter
Drinking eared eared animals in winter needs special attention. Even with minimal knowledge of physics, it is clear that at a negative air temperature, liquid will freeze. In this case, a heated drinking bowl will come to the rescue.
If in your area the temperature does not drop to a level below -10 ° C, then it is quite enough to insulate the tank with foam, straw or ordinary hay. But so that the animal does not catch a cold from the cool water, it is still recommended to choose a heated drinker.
The following varieties are known today:
- heated by lamps;
- with built-in thermostat;
- warm coasters.
Based on the foregoing, it can be seen that daily access to water is important for all living things. Today this problem is solved quite simply, just select and install a container. This article provides complete instructions for making a nipple drinker, which will allow you to make it yourself.
Varieties: drinkers and drinkers
In the field of rabbit equipment, there are several dozen different types of drinkers. Their design may be somewhat similar, and some are strikingly different from each other.
However, each model has a number of advantages and disadvantages, knowing about which you need to choose the right one for yourself. Let's take a closer look at the most common types of drinking installations at the moment:
Cup drinkers
Such drinkers are extremely popular, since the very improvised means (cans, plastic bottles, bowls) are installed for them as a reservoir. The main thing that is required in this case is to protect the installation from rabbits that can turn it over.
For this purpose, the structures are weighted by attaching a load from the back side, or a clamp is used. A huge minus of the cup devices is the high probability of contamination of the liquid poured into them with waste of the vital activity of individuals, which can easily get into the reservoir.
Because of this, you will have to constantly take care of the purity of drinking water, if necessary, renew it. The container, be it a bottle or a plate, also has to be washed from time to time.
Automatic drinkers
The functionality of these devices includes the possibility of self-filling the tank with liquid, which cannot be done with a regular drinking cup. All that is needed for the operation of the auto drinker for rabbits is an additional container, which is perfect for plastic bottles.
The bowl is installed inside the rabbit house. To secure containers made from a bottle, clamps are suitable. The height of the lower collar is approximately 3 cm and it determines the liquid level in the trough.
To prevent the natural secretions of rabbits from entering the established reservoirs, the protrusion in the cage should also be about 3 cm.
Nipple
The nipple drinker is most common on large rabbit farms. The design of nipples is based on a stainless steel tank, into which water flows from a sewer pipe. After it, the liquid enters an additional tank, where it is distributed by the flush system.
This additional reservoir is connected to the right size tubing system, through which the drink will flow into each cage. The main difference between this type of drinkers is the presence of a nipple: a special ball, when pressed into the main tank, which is in the rabbit enclosure, water will be released.
As a rule, animals learn to hit the nipple with their tongue, but for this you need to know how to teach a rabbit to drink.
Each rabbit breeder will have to choose an option that meets all the conditions and requirements. It all depends on what conditions are planned to be created, as well as on the number of individuals.
ATTENTION !
This article reveals only part of the question related to equipment for raising rabbits. For the sake of completeness, I suggest that you look at other related articles, as well as comments to them.
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Required materials
Giving preference to one or another material in the matter of making a drinker on your own, you need to clearly determine the number of rabbits that will inhabit the farm.
For small farms, cup drinkers, in which bowls will become reservoirs, will be a quite suitable option. They can use a drip mechanism or more advanced systems.
It is possible to correctly solve the issue with the fact that rabbits are able to turn a container with a drink in different ways: use a wire, a holder from a plastic bottle, any other fasteners that will serve different household items perfectly.
More experienced breeders often use metal or PVC sheets. The above materials, of course, are available for purchase in specialized stores, but after all, creating a drinker with your own hands, you want to save money.
Therefore, you should not hesitate to use any materials that are unnecessary in the household, if they can be suitable for creating a design for a drinking bowl.
An entrepreneur who decides to start breeding rabbits and make do-it-yourself drinkers for rabbits should know that the ability to save money on such seemingly small points can significantly reduce the amount of expenses. In addition, schemes have been developed by experienced breeders.
They will help you quickly and efficiently build drinking bowls. These schemes are suitable even when it comes to hanging structures.
We make a drinker with our own hands
Having figured out the varieties of sippy cups, you should move on to the main thing - drinkers for rabbits and methods of their production. Note that drawings developed by experienced breeders will help to make a drinker of any kind.
Let's take a closer look at the most common ways of creating, among which there are both simple drinkers and more complex home-made installations.
Bottle drinkers for rabbits
First, let's explore how the simpler options are made. Bottle sippy cups are an example. The main material is an ordinary bottle, the volume of which is no more than 1.5 liters. A hole is cut out on the plastic wall, the diameter of which should be slightly larger than the size of the head of the individual living in the cage.
It is better to secure the finished tank with wire or any other suitable things that you find on hand. It is important to ensure that the rabbits can easily reach the water and the breeder can easily refill the bottle with new liquid.
It is extremely simple to make such a structure, but it does not differ in durability, animals often gnaw the plastic of the bottle, which makes the drinking bowl unusable.
Another significant plus is that no special effort is required to wash the bottle structure.
Making a vacuum drinker for rabbits
The calyx can be made in two ways:
- home-made;
- purchase in a specialized pet store.
It is believed that the most suitable material for drinking construction is stainless steel. To begin with, the height is set at which the bowl under the bottle will be fixed (about 10 cm). It is important that the inhabitants of the house reach out to her. However, they should not fit into the cup.
After placing the bowl, the bottle takes an inverted state. Let's build it so that it keeps its distance from the bowl and does not fit snugly.
It is installed outside the house itself from above and below with clamps. The number of bottles also depends on how much water they hold. It is important that 1 rabbit should drink from 0.5 to 1 liter of water daily.
How to make DIY nipple drinkers for rabbits?
The same stainless steel will be optimal as a durable material.The nipple itself can be found in a specialized store, so experienced rabbit breeders are advised to buy it, and not do it yourself.
It is better to buy a high-quality ready-made nipple than to assemble it yourself, because do-it-yourself nipple drinkers for rabbits should have maximum safety and tightness.
Particular importance is attached to the corner edges of the structure: they must not be sharp. This will also protect the pet and protect it from mechanical damage while drinking. To understand exactly how to make nipple drinkers for rabbits, you should focus on vacuum ones: the indicators of the volume of water in the container and the fasteners will be similar.
To prevent the contents of the containers from freezing in winter, heated drinking bowls for rabbits are being built. In the cold season, the same principle is used for warming the floors in the house.
An alternative would be an aquarium heater containing a thermostat. If the drinking bowl is properly insulated, then the winter time will not be scary for the pet, because he will be able to drink warm water even in severe frosts.
In order for a pet to be healthy and active all year round, you need to purchase or build feeders and drinkers for rabbits.
If you first read and watch training videos, where experienced breeders step by step tell and show how to make drinkers and feeders for rabbits, then you can easily make them. This also applies to how to build an autodrinker for rabbits with your own hands.
Small announcement.
In recent years, more and more rabbit breeders are thinking about the issue of automation, which means easier work when servicing their farms. This is not surprising, because unlike other animals, rabbits require an almost individual approach. Taking into account the number of animals in the rapidly growing livestock, it becomes more and more difficult to provide for it. In other words, without elementary automation, the work of a rabbit breeder can turn into a real hard labor. Continuing the thought, I propose to talk in detail about nipple drinkers for rabbits.Nipple (English nipple, translated as nipple) - a connecting tube, usually threaded at the ends. Designed to connect pipelines in various devices and mechanisms. For a temporary connection, and in some designs on a permanent basis, the nipple has a one-way valve.
They appeared in our arsenal relatively recently, being imported from China, and they have taken root, preventing competitors from ousting themselves from the market. This is due not only to the cost acceptable to most customers, but also to high manufacturability, ease of installation, maintenance and reliability. Experienced rabbit breeders immediately appreciated these benefits of civilization and introduced them into their farms. So did Fedor Anikeev, who devoted more than 4 decades to his beloved work. Today we will contact him again and try to ask him in more detail about nipple drinking bowls.
