Don't assume your pet's drinking bottle is working properly

[Magicpaintbrush]

I have two rats, they both have those drinking bottles you attach to the side of the cage with a little metal tube at the bottom and a little metal ball inside the tube that controls the flow of water. Every now and then, probably about 3 times in the past year, I found the water wasn't coming out of the tube - I guess the little metal ball got stuck. Now I do a 5 second check every single morning on every water bottle by tapping the bottom of the metal tube to see if water comes out onto my finger - this morning it didn't, the ball was stuck. A good shake and it's working perfectly again. I tell you all this because I think it's sensible to do this daily check - it would be awful if your rat, hamster, guinea pig couldn't drink anything because it looked like they had loads of water but you didn't know they were actually going thirsty. So just letting you all know this can happen. Also, sensible to have two water bottles if you can, so there's always a back up.

Thanks! I’m off to check now!

I’ve had a few stop working. I always check and keep a spare now

This is such good advice. We look after a friends’s hamster every summer and we
noticed last year he kept really drinking and keeping us awake. We felt awful when we realised that water wasn’t coming out and he must’ve been desperate. We didn’t know how long it’d been like that. I think my biggest nightmare would be looking after someone’s pet who died.

YY especially with the hot weather they need access to fresh clean water and if you have more than 1 animal you need more than 1 bottle so they cannot get bullied away from it .

Our guinea-pigs scorned the water bottles , I bought them small ones and had them clean and ready to fill . I found those wire hooks or springs with clips a pain so I secured some plastic bottles to the wire cage bars (cut the base and some of the plastic bottle neck so they made a "tube" which allowed the water bottle to slide in and be secure . Just need to put it at the correct height as guinea-pigs are too idle to stretch and too clumsy to bend !)

Though they got 99% of their fluid from veg- I know that doesn;t work for all small pets but piggies are basically stomachs on legs . Grass , veg, some salad then hay . The amount they pee I knew they were getting fluid .
Cucumber, watermelon, salad leaves and dandelions rinsed with water
But a water bottle at 3am to rattle was great entertainment !

They need to be cleaned - no algae please - and we never used VitC in the drinking water as some don;t like it and you don;t know how much they drink .