How to make a drinker for rabbits with your own hands: photos, ideas

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Of course, rabbits bred on the farm should be provided not only with quality feed. These animals also require good clean drinking water. If you wish, you can make drinking bowls for rabbits with your own hands. There are several types of water containers for such animals. And they all have a relatively simple design.

Drinker requirements

The water containers for rabbits installed in cages or aviaries, of course, must meet all sanitary standards, as well as be convenient and safe. Drinkers for these animals should be made only from environmentally friendly, easy-to-care materials.

Also, a self-assembled container should not have sharp edges and corners. Rabbits are known to have very "weak" noses. With a sharp jump, the animal can easily hit this part of the body on the sharp edge of the drinker and die.

Simple cup design

Water tanks of this type in cages and aviaries are not installed toooften. Many rabbit farmers find them not particularly user-friendly. But sometimes such structures are still installed in cells. For example, they are often used immediately after buying rabbits, at the very beginning of farming.

As a cup drinker for rabbits, you can use any containers of a suitable volume that are no longer needed on the farm. These can be, for example, old plastic plates, metal cups, etc.

All that a farmer will need to do with his own hands when making such drinkers is to fix them in cages so that the animals do not turn them over. For example, you can make holes in the cups at the top and fix them with wire to the structures of the cage or aviary. You can also simply glue heavy bases to the bottoms of the containers.

How to make a do-it-yourself bottle drinker for rabbits

This type of water tank is called vacuum and is also made quite easily. The advantage of drinking bowls from plastic bottles, in comparison with cups, is that when using them, the farmer has to add water to animals much less frequently. At the same time, you can make such a container, if desired, in just a few minutes.

Water is served in such drinkers to rabbits in portions, as they drink. Containers of this type are made as follows:

• removing the cap from a half-liter plastic bottle;
• pour water into it;
• coverthe neck of some bowl of not too large diameter;
• without removing the bowl, turn the bottle upside down;
• install the structure at the bottom of the cage.

For making do-it-yourself drinkers for rabbits from plastic bottles, not smooth, even, but curly bottles are best suited. In the future, it will be easy to fix such containers on the bars of the cage or the supporting posts of the fence of the enclosure, simply by wrapping them with wire.

Drinker with float valve

Capacities of this variety already have a somewhat more complex design and are usually installed on fairly large farms. Do-it-yourself float drinkers for rabbits can be made, for example, like this:

• a large tank is placed at a height in the farm room;
• a distribution tank with a regulating float is installed;
• both containers are connected by hoses;
• pipes made of brass or plastic are connected to the distribution tank;
• pipes lead to each cell;
• next to the cages, pipes are welded to the end of the supply lines;
• to the nozzles, by means of a nut, glasses are attached under the water.

The operation of such drinkers is very simple. If a rabbit drinks all the water from any cage, the float system will work and water will pour into the glass again.

Benefits of using nipple drinkers

Rabbits -Animals, unfortunately, are quite frail in terms of he alth. And therefore, farmers who breed such animals are forced to pay special attention to keeping them clean. This also applies to drinking water.

In hand-made drinkers for rabbits from bottles (or cups), animals, unfortunately, can easily throw and drag all kinds of garbage with their paws. Nipple designs of such a drawback are deprived. With their help, the rabbit breeder can provide his wards with the cleanest water possible. That is why such designs have recently become more and more popular among farmers.

Another advantage of nipple drinkers is the minimum water consumption. It is impossible for rabbits to pour it out in any way when drinking.

What materials will be needed

It will be relatively easy to make a do-it-yourself nipple drinker for rabbits. The principle of operation of this design is that when the animal presses the ball located in the tube, water begins to flow from the container.

The water supply tank itself, when making such a drinker on your own, can be made from an ordinary plastic bottle. The nipple spout for such a design is best purchased, for example, in an online store ready-made. Such products are actually very inexpensive - literally a penny.

In addition to the 1.5L bottle and spout, to make a nipple drinker, you will need to prepare:

• thin silicone hose;
• duct tape;
• silicone sealant;
• ironskewers for barbecue.

Where to start?

What is making a do-it-yourself nipple drinker for rabbits? In the photo above, you can see that the design of such a container is relatively simple. Start making drinkers of this type like this:

• bottle tightly capped;
• the end of the skewer is heated on gas;
• pierce the lid of the bottle with a skewer and turn it several times to make a round hole;
• a piece about 12 cm long is cut off from a thin hose;
• insert the tube into the hole in the lid to a depth of 1-2 cm.

Of course, the hose should not fall out of the cover during the operation of the drinker. Therefore, if it does not sit too tightly in the hole, it must be additionally fixed. To do this, simply remove the cap from the bottle and wrap more tape on the piece of tube coming out of its reverse side.

Final assembly step

Continue work on assembling the nipple drinker as follows:

• lubricate the junction of the tube and the cap with silicone sealant so that there are no leaks in the future;
• spout purchased at the store is also smeared with sealant;
• insert the spout into the tube from the outside of the bottle.

At the next stage, you need to cut off the bottom of the bottle with scissors to makecover. If desired, making do-it-yourself drinkers for rabbits in this way, you can skip this operation. But in this case, in the future, in order to pour water into the container, you will have to remove the lid from it.

Using a drinker without a half-cut bottom will, of course, make it a little more difficult to provide rabbits with water. However, without such a top “cover”, the design will, according to many farmers, still be more hygienic. The fact is that through a partially cut off bottom during operation, later, albeit in a small amount, all sorts of garbage can get into the drinker - straw, blades of grass, sawdust. This, in turn, can lead to clogging of the nipple.

Where to place the drinker

A container for rabbits made in this way is best installed in a cage or aviary so that animals can only get directly to the nipple itself. For example, a bottle of water can be hung on the wall of an aviary or a higher cage outside, and a tube with a nipple can simply be passed inside.

Do-it-yourself drinkers for rabbits: original ideas

Cup and nipple containers, as well as vacuum ones made from bottles, are most often used by farmers when keeping rabbits. But if desired, some other, more original drinkers can be installed in the cages of animals. These can be, for example:

• containers made of plastic pipes with holes cut into them;
• vacuum constructions,made from plastic cups;
• drinkers from mayonnaise buckets, etc.

Instead of a conclusion

Of course, it is best to equip a rabbit farm with comfortable and aesthetic factory drinkers. But at first, homemade containers of this type can really be the most suitable option for providing animals with clean, fresh water.

Perhaps, such devices will not differ in particular ease of use or any aesthetic appeal. However, it is the manufacture of feeders and drinkers for rabbits with their own hands that will allow a novice fur breeder to save a little on organizing a farm. Photos of home-made containers designed to provide animals with clean water, presented on the page, demonstrate the simplicity of their design quite clearly.