We make drinkers for rabbits with our own hands
In addition to a room suitable for breeding pets on a private farm, its arrangement, including drinking bowls for rabbits, is of no small importance. You can mount ready-made devices purchased in specialized stores, but it is not at all difficult to make drinking bowls for rabbits with your own hands.
Rabbit drinkers
What rabbit drinkers can be made
The variety of types and options for how to make a drinker for rabbits with your own hands has dozens of types, each of which has its own advantages and disadvantages, for each one can use different improvised means and materials.
- A bowl drinker for rabbits can also serve as a feeder, these are the easiest to manufacture, affordable and one might say primitive homemade drinkers for rabbits. Plates and bowls, plastic bottles and cans are most often used to make such a cup. Among the main requirements is the prevention of overturning, therefore, an important factor is the way of attaching the device to the cage. Sometimes a homemade cup drinker for rabbits requires weighting so that the animals do not turn it over. Such a structure is made heavier by hanging the load from the outside, or they are fastened using a screw (it is better to hang it this way more reliably).
- Semi-automatic devices are automatically replenished with water from a container designed for this purpose, which can be a tank or a plastic bottle. A cup for such a semiautomatic device is attached by a removable method, the water level is regulated by means of the lower attachment. Typically, such a semi-automatic vacuum drinker is attached at a distance of 3 cm from the floor level and 3 cm from the cage wall, which provides the greatest protection against debris and excrement from eared pets.
- The automatic nipple drinker for rabbits has found its consumer today and is the most demanded. Previously, a do-it-yourself drinker for rabbits was found only on large farms. But gradually they began to use it on private farms. The design of the nipple auto-drinker for rabbits consists of a water-collecting distribution tank, from which pipes extend towards the cages. These structures are equipped with a special nipple in the form of a ball (cover), when pressed on which water begins to flow.
In case of apartment maintenance, when one decorative rabbit lives, the most convenient option will be a purchased auto-drinker. And with industrial maintenance, you can make do-it-yourself drinkers for rabbits.
Homemade water supply devices for rabbits are not afraid of damage, in which case they are much easier to fix than purchased equipment. A vacuum drinker is more reliable, and it will not be more difficult to make it than an automatic one.
The choice of material for structures
In the manufacture and fastening of mechanical and automatic do-it-yourself drinkers for rabbits, various materials and devices are required:
- home designers most often use wire as a fastener for cup devices;
- as a material for the independent manufacture of a structure, metal sheets of galvanized iron are often used;
- often wood is required under the auxiliary walls: board, wooden blocks, PVC or plywood.
When making your own drinkers for rabbits, you often use all the available tools that can be used, starting with plastic sewer pipes, plastic bottles and cans for water and drinks, ending with ceramic mugs in cup structures for drinking animals.
As a tool in the manufacture of drinking bowls for rabbits with your own hands, you will need to prepare pliers, scissors for cutting metal, a drill for drilling holes. If the plans for a vacuum drinker will need the same materials, plus a special cover.
Technologies for the manufacture of simple drinkers
Depending on the complexity of the chosen design, manufacturing technologies may differ in the actions included in them. So the equipment from pipes for large farms will require a significant investment of time and materials.
The simplest plastic devices
You can make simple designs with your own hands from an ordinary plastic bottle by taking a container with a volume of up to 1.5 liters. A hole is made in it, the dimensions of which are as wide as the pet's head. The bottle is attached to the cage with a wire. Their advantages are simplicity and minimal costs, ease of maintenance. Among the shortcomings is fragility, since adults gnaw such products without much difficulty.
Pipe devices
Making this type of drinker for rabbits with your own hands is easy. You need to take an asbestos-cement pipe, which is blocked at the ends with cans of canned food, they will serve as a lid. The principle is like a plastic bottle with a hole.
Metal devices
In the process of making your own rabbit drinker, you will need stainless steel. The sharp edges of the metal sheet are smoothed out with a file, the seams are soldered, as shown in the video. A container with water is fixed in the resulting metal structure. The most economical option would be to use galvanized sheets.
Vacuum and nipple devices
Vacuum fixture
Vacuum is a little more difficult, you need a plastic bottle attached with the neck down. A container is placed under it, close to the neck, from which the pussies will drink. Then the lid is removed, and you need to let the water fill the container, you can also set the desired level. As the pet drinks the water, the liquid from the overturned bottle will be poured into the container. By the same principle, adaptations are made to facilitate feeding of young broods. The vacuum drinker can be used both at home and on farms. Such devices are the most convenient for little pussies, if there are many of them and they are in one enclosure.
For a few rabbits
To provide enough water for several pets at the same time, a large fish jar is better suited as equipment, where wooden blocks are 2/3 high. A three-liter plastic bottle is abruptly overturned into this jar and attached to them. As a result, the water should fill only the free 2/3 of the can.
Automatic constructions
Among homemade drinkers, drip nipple systems have become the most popular.
For self-production of a structure with a nipple water supply system, you will need a plastic container and nipple balls, which are screwed onto the neck of the bottle.How to do this and how the nipple system works, you can watch the video.
It must be remembered that nipples can freeze during winter growing conditions. For the winter, rabbit breeders make heating, about which you can watch a video.
Another version of the auto-drinker is necessary for a large number of animals. It uses a large storage tank with a volume of at least 10 liters, a plastic or rubber pipe and several nipples. The tank is installed near the cages. Distribution branches are made from the main tank using pipes. A hose with a nipple screwed onto the end is mounted into each cage through a hole made in the wall. How the drawing looks like can be seen in the photo.