Not drinking much

[ibala7]

I have two male rabbits, housed separately in hutches and large runs. April - Nov. they are outdoors on grass, right now they are in my basement with cardboard and hay substrate. Typically, they will empty their water bottles every 2-3 days. For the past few weeks, neither one is drinking much at all. Environmentally, nothing has changed at all (temperature, light, enclosure, water source and container.) This decrease in water intake has not happened in the past winters, either.

One of them, Scout, had his diet adjusted last month, but the other's is the same. Scout was having a lot of very soft stools around the clock, so I'm giving him a lower protein pellet now.

I could understand if water intake was affected by a diet change, but why would the other one drink less all of a sudden, too? Any thoughts/suggestions?

 

[ibala7]

I should have added that neither rabbit has shown any ill effects from drinking less.

 

[Blue eyes]

I assume you've check the water bottles for any blockages. Are they eating plenty of hay? Usually the more hay is eaten, the more water they will drink. Just wondering if maybe they aren't fond of their current hay or it isn't being refreshed often enough to encourage more hay eating. It isn't unusual for rabbits to lose interest in good hay if it's been sitting in their enclosure for more than a day.

Might also want to consider switching to bowls for water. Heavy bowls or attached bowls that can't be tipped. Rabbits tend to drink more from a bowl than a bottle.

Do they get greens? If the greens are very wet, they get water from that too.