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Chew Proof water bottles?

Jadie.Glitch

Jadie.Glitch

:) colubridstudios.com :)
About once every month or even two months I'd end up replacing a water bottle for one of my 6 colonies of ASF rats... but for some reason recently they've all decided that it's more fun to chew their water bottle than to run on their wheel so I'm up to replacing one every other day. At over $2 a pop I'm becoming very frustrated.

Does anyone know any good chew-proof water bottles I can get for a decent price? I looked into the Super Pet bottles but they appear to tall to put in my 10-gallon aquariums.

Help! :headbang:
 
Are the water bottles inside their enclosure? All rodents are prone to chewing, that is how they keep their incisors from over growing. Only suggestion I can think of is to remove make sure the stopper, or screw on spout) is protected by having the water bottle on the outside of their enclosure. That can be difficult if you are using glass aquariums to house your ASF's. Lab boxes might be a better option. Or you can make home made rodent tubs that also keep the water bottle on the outside.
 
I'm all for making my own rodent tubs. Any suggestions on some good instructions for these? I'm gonna hit google right now ^_^.
 
Jadie, I used the large plastic bottles that had the stainless steel drinking tube. Is the tube the part that they're chewing? I had trouble keeping it at the level of the young ones, so I just put a giant piece of velcro on the inside of the tub and one on the glass so I could move it as high or low as I needed it. You could most likely do this with the glass bottles as well, but make sure you use heavy duty velcro.
 
Take hardware cloth and circle completely around the bottle. Having the drinking tube sticking out. Make sure your lids are tight becausse this will also allow them to climb to the top of the cage and give them leverage to push off a lightly weighted top. As Comoxcorn has suggested, lab cages are great. Also racks work great. Here is both...

lab cage
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occupied lab cage
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The one thing about lab cages is that they would have to give up their wheel. There isnt a lot space for extra accessories

The middle rack is where my ASF's are. The little racks are mice. My ASF's have a small wheel which I rotate in and out of each shelf, every handful of days. I am in the process of building another rack for under the other part of the shelf. As you can tell the water bottles are sticking down in to the cages and the only exsposed parts are the metal tubes just like lab cages.
snakephotoshoot110.jpg



Building a rack is easy, and I am finding it sooooo much easier to care for. The tubs are large concrete tubs found at lowes for 5.98 each. The most expensive thing was the hardware cloth. I bought a couple of extra tubs to exchange(clean)with, it saves time and my colonies are biters so less exposure to the pinch of little teeth.....
 
Check out the Bean Farm. Look under rodent supplies. They have really nice cages there if that is what you are looking for. But more than that, they have glass water bottles with stainless steel sipper tubes. Before I went to auto water that is what I used. The mice can’t hurt them and they work very well. They cost more that $2.00 but you will only buy them once.
 
Jadie.Glitch said:
I'm all for making my own rodent tubs. Any suggestions on some good instructions for these? I'm gonna hit google right now ^_^.
Click to expand...


I will have to find where I found my instruction. But I also modified them quite a bit. Different measurements and I have a bad knee so I didnt want to bend all the way down to the floor. So I made them with smaller amount of tubs....
 
Love the homemade mouse box..... Does the lid lift off or is ther another way to get at the mice. My monitor sucks sorry.....
 
I really want to build a rack with a drip system... I've literally been dreaming of that, lol. My only problem is that I don't have any large power tools. I've heard that Home Depot will cut you the pieces you need, but I haven't looked into that. Has anyone heard of this? I'm checking now...
 
Jadie.Glitch said:
I really want to build a rack with a drip system... I've literally been dreaming of that, lol. My only problem is that I don't have any large power tools. I've heard that Home Depot will cut you the pieces you need, but I haven't looked into that. Has anyone heard of this? I'm checking now...
Click to expand...

At least some Home Despots will.
 
Awesome Sauce! Yes, they'll cut my boards for me... for free! Just gotta buy the boards. I'm so excited! Can't wait to get this done. A drip system is going to solve all my problems! Well, not really... but life will just be so much better, lol.
 
wade said:
I got a drip system and when it was all done, there was still global warming.
Click to expand...


LMAO ...global warming is like that itch you have on your inner thigh that starts in the middle of dinner with a beautiful women....
 
Jadie.Glitch said:
.................. A drip system is going to solve all my problems! Well, not really... but life will just be so much better, lol.
Click to expand...


Be aware that a drip system can create problems too. If the water reservoir is large and a leak develops, the entire reservior can empty into a single tub and drown all the mice really quickly. There may be valve systems that provide protection against this, but I know one person who had a whole rack of rodents die when the drip system failed. A small piece of bedding can lodge in the valve so they have to be monitored closely.
 
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