Automatic water systems

[jil101ca]

I was looking at some pics of cages, not fun on dial up lol, and notice some of you have automatic systems. This is something I would like to do for the summer, it wouldn't work for the winter though.Is this something I could make my selfor do you have to buy the system? It doesn't look like it would be to hard to do.

 

[pamnock]

I have a Borak flexible tubing system - it was easy to install.

Pam

 

[clarzoo]

I built my own auto watering system for my old rabbitry. The tubing and connectors are easy to find at any hardware store- and I bought the drinking tips and the little metal pieces that keep the tubing away from the cage from Bass Equipment. (Those metal pieces are important- they keep the rabbit from chewing the tubing).

I live in an area where freezing isn't a problem, so I didn't have to worry much about what type of tubing to use. I know some people use PVC tubing which is much more sturdy- but less flexible if you end up moving cages around.

 

[seasideseashell]

I use the Nivek system that we ordered from KWcages. At first we bought the tubing, but when we buy more, we just goto Home Depot and get the clear tubing, but the black tubing works wellsince it doesn't allowalgaeand mold to get in, since it's black. It was cheap toget, and easy to install, and has worked well besides the two problemswe've had with it.

The problem we had with it is that it lets out to much water, and thecages would be soaked, so we had to make a drip system... and we thengot rid of the drip system, and are currently using the old feeder cupunderneath, but the pigs tend to move the cups. We are still trying tofind a good drip system.

The other problem we have is were it tends to leak, and when they drinkout if the sipper, the water goes backwards also, and gets all over thefloor, and goes to other cages, and gets them wet!

But I love it, hence those annoying problems, since I just have to filla few buckets up each day or so, rather than those annoying waterbottles. And it's tons easier to clean than the water bottles, anddoesn't need to be cleaned as much. Plus it doesn't make the annoyingnoise when they drink from it, like water bottles do.

I still have a cage tower that still has water bottles for now. We areswitching two of our towers to wire instead of Creative Cubes, so I'mnot doing any new watering system hook up for the tower with waterbottles, since the design will be switching for both towers.

 

[jil101ca]

Thanks for the responses. this is what i wasthinking of doing; tubing going from the bottom of a barrel or bucket,(i'm not sure if the bucket/barrel needs to be a closed unit or not)running along the cages with a piece of tube going into each cage. Tconnectors shold work for that. I'm thinking of taking the metal spoutsoff some of my old water bottles for the rabbits to drinkfrom.I gather from seasideseashell's responsethatit would also work ifI were to use the metal drinking bowls(the kind you use with a pop bottle that hook on the cage) Any otherideas or suggestions would be very helpful.

 

[pamnock]

If you are using a gravity fed system, thebucket must not be sealed. I use a big coleman cooler insteadof a bucket . . .



A small hole is drilled in the top to prevent a vacuum from forming inthe system. A hole is drilled close to the bottom for theoutlet font.The cooleralsohelps to keep water from freezing in the winter.



Pam

 

[seasideseashell]

Here are some pictures of the watering systemwith the old design drip buster under it, and what the PVC drip busterhose thing that drained the stuff into a bucket looked like, thebuckets we used to use for the water were like.







Tomorrow I can get pictures of now when we are using the cups... thecon is that they have to be dumped about once or twice daily, sincethey are only about 8oz. They use to be the feeder cups, but we gotplastic J feeder that still need to be put up, so we have just used thesmall cups to catch the water.

We also used a Funnel from Wal-Mart, and that worked good.