Rabbit Won't Drink His Water

[pam9]

For some reason, my lionhead Einstein will not drink his water. I've been noticing this over the past few weeks - his water bottle stays full, and his litter box is pretty dry when I clean it. It doesn't matter if the water is fresh or not - a recently changed water bottle does not seem to appeal to him any more. I use cold tap water to fill it up, no vitamins. The only I recent change I could think of that would affect his desire to drink his water is a reduction in his daily pellets about a month ago.

Water is coming out of his bottle when I press on it with my finger. But when I try putting some on my finger and giving to him, he ducks his head so I can't reach his mouth. He's been eating normally, and he gets vegetables daily, so I guess that's keeping him somewhat hydrated. But I would like his to drink his water! Any thoughts?

 

[BlueCamasRabbitry]

Give him a water dish. He might not like the water bottle, and find that a dish is much easier.

Emily

 

[Tweetiepy]

Mine prefers a bowl of water too he doesn't seem to know how to drink from a bottle. So I got him a huge dog bowl for the water

 

[maxysmummy]

my bunnies have gone through stages of this.

it's very concerning isnt it? if he's still urinating it shouldn't be a problem - probably just getting water from somewhere else (ie veggies)

if he hasnt urinated i'd suggest taking him to the vet

 

[elrohwen]

Yep, I agree with the bowl idea. Veggies can be very hydrating and I rarely see my two drink (they also go in phases with how much they drink), but if the water level really isn't changing he probably needs a different water source.

 

[maxysmummy]

another thing is - scrub the bottle.

i know when i was giving mine medecine, if i hadnt washed the syringe before giving it to him he would REFUSE to eat it. as soon as the syringe was washed he gobbled it down.

 

[Bunny parents]

I agree with others about water bowl. My girl used to drink from water bottle when she was 3-4 months old. Yes, she loves the water bottle. Then the time passed by and now she doesn't drink from it at all. I gave her both ways : bottle and bowl and one day she just stopped drinking from the bottle and now she's in love with water bowl.
Veggies give few amount of water too. Ever since I started feeding her more greens, plus it's Winter now, she drinks less.

 

[pam9]

Thank you all for your advice. I've tried putting a small bowl of water in his cage, but Einstein does not seem to prefer that any more than a bottle. Instead he tipped a good amount of water out, and it's possible he peed in it - yellow water when I came home today.

But I changed his litter box tonight, and there was a pretty good amount of clumpage on the bottom. It seems the best way to get Einstein water is to trick him into drinking it. We give him vegetables (romaine lettuce, kale, peppers) daily, and usually we can wash a whole bunch, shred/cut it into pieces, and store it for a week. When I gave Einstein his vegetables this morning, I took a big handful and ran it under water before giving it to him wet. I'll continue giving him water in hopes that he'll drink it as it gets warmer, but right now this seems to be the solution for my problem child!

 

[maxysmummy]

often rabbits prefer drinking water at a lukewarm temperature, so if its chilled water perhaps its too cold for him?

alsooo, maybe put a few drops of 100% apple or pineapple juice in there to sweeten it so its more tasty to him?

 

[elrohwen]

How much hay does he eat? Often rabbits who are eating a lot of hay begin to drink more water to compensate. If he's not much of a hay eater he might not feel the need to drink much.

 

[arikun]

Check is skin for hydration. Gently pinch the fur on his back or back of neck and release, it should bounce back pretty fast. If not, he could be under hydrated. Other than that, feeding veggies will help.

 

[pam9]

I think he's a pretty good hay eater, but I don't know if I would qualify what he eats as a lot. He's a pretty small rabbit, ~4 pounds, so I give him grass 2-3 times a day because once he pushes it to the floor he won't eat it.

I think he seems hydrated when I tried the skin test - my brother said the skin bounced back. He's all fur, and pretty skinny (vet says he's normal size) - it was hard to find some skin to pinch!

 

[Flash Gordon]

i had a bun who had a bladder infection and i needed him to drink more water so i put cranberry juice in a crock and he drank tons of it..also he does drink from his water bottle but when i have a bun who doesnt drink enough i put a smidge of banana on the edge of the water bottle nozzle..once they get the banana they seem to keep drinking...i do that a couple times in a row but make sure its a tiny amount of banana... good luck and if ur bun doesnt start drinking the norm amount soon he WILL need to see the vet,,,
does ur bun go in the litter box often and try and potty ..cuz if ur bun seems to frequent the box alot and just pee a tiny bit each time..then hes got a bladder infection and it WILL Need antibiotics...u dont wanna mess around with that either...keep us posted

 

[ariusshadow]

My flemish mix did this. When I switched her to a larger water bottle. I realized that a week had gone by and she hadn't touched it! I moved the stopper at the end, to make sure the water wasn't jammed. It dripped. As it turns out, the type of bottle was different. And I hadn't realized it. The stopper at the bottom of this one was the push-pin type. Jasper was much more used to the ball type. I switched back to the smaller bottle, with the ball type of stopper, and she chugged like there was no tomorrow!
Point is, some buns just dislike some bottle stoppers. If you have some bottles laying around with other stoppers, or looser ones (some ball-stoppers are a little stiffer than others), maybe Einstein will have less trouble. Hope I helped.

 

[pam9]

Me again, with an update on Einstein. Back in January, nothing seemed to really persuade him to drink his water, but he has started again (actually a while ago, but I'm a bad updater! Maybe because it's getting warmer? He drinks a pretty good amount each day, 1/4 to 1/2 of a small bottle.

I don't know what the problem was in January. Maybe he just likes to make me nervous.