Drinking from Rabbit/Guinea Pig Style Water-bottle. Having Problems!

[EggPoopers]

I bought a guinea pig / rabbit style water bottle that hangs on the side of the cage, for my week old chicks to drink from.

I had the water bottle in the rabbit cage that I currently have 2 chicks in, for about 2 days and they just didn't figure out how to use the thing. Infact they didn't even try, didn't even investigate the bottle. I would even tap on the ball bearing at the opening of the bottle and that didn't get their attention either.

The bottle had a very slow leak, (dripping) every few seconds it would drip. and the chicks would drink the leaking water off of the bottom of the cage, through the pine shavings.

I didn't want to leave them to drink like that for very long, so I took the bottle out and put a bowl of water back in (which they are using) but they keep dumping it / filling it with pine shavings / pooping in it. I even raised this one and attached it to the wire of the cage in hopes they wouldnt dump it, but theyre still pooping in it / filling it with shavings!

What do I do!? How did everyone else here teach their chicks / chickens to drink from a hanging bottle??

I think for now I'm going to return this bottle because it leaks and pick up a different style one, a glass one, in hopes that they might see the water through the glass and investigate the bottle that way.

Any suggestions or tips to encourage my chicks to drink from this type of bottle?

(This was the bottle I had that they wouldn't use)




And this is the glass one I'm thinking of purchasing




Thanks guys. Any help / tips or other suggestions as to less-messy drinking situations would be much appreciated.

 

[captainmommy3]

we bought some things called chicken nipples you can look them up on eBay they work great and they r cheap! you can just attach them to pvc tubing and gravity feed the water with a bucket mounted higher up but we wanted to make sure our chicks were used to it so they wont be confused when they go outside so we put one in a water bottle lid and mounted it in their brooder they LOVE it! i left the original waterer in the brooder incase they didnt learn how to use it right away but they all started using it within like 5 mins and they dont even want to use the regular waterer and they have been drinking more often.....not to mention NO MORE DIRTY WATER! that makes them and me happy.

 

[claudicles]

I've used both sorts and they can both leak. I had no trouble getting the chicks to use them. I just touched a chick or two's beak to the ball bearing so they got some water and they figured it out from there. I had one batch of chicks who worked it out without me even doing that.