Water Bottles.... Top Fill Type...

[Random Rabbit]

We're thinking about trying the top fill type bottle. Has anyone here tried them ?? Pros...cons .... Thank You. RR

 

[SterlingSatin]

i bought a "Lix-it" brand top fill bottle to try it out. it had a peg in the nozzle instead of a ball-bearing and it was too stiff for my rabbits to drink from. if you can find a top fill bottle that has a decent nozzle then it might be worth it. also, i don't know how much of a time saver it is unless you use a hose to fill up the bottles. if you use a hose you would have to have a off/on water flow valve on it so you don't spill water all over the floor in-between bottles. i personally don't think they have a huge advantage over regular bottles, but they might be worth it if you have a lot of rabbits. however, if you do have a lot of rabbits, its probably more worth it to get an automatic watering system.

 

[akane]

Looooove my top fill lixits. The rabbits will usually drink out of them before their backup ball type waters (all my cages have 2 water sources just in case) and even the young mini rex have had no issues using them. We use some of those refillable plastic water containers, usually the 3g size, to haul water and pour it in the water containers. Easier than a hose or bucket. The top fill bottles are a huge time saver. You don't have to remove them from the cage to fill, the opening is wider which allows pouring without spilling, and the caps don't pop off. I've had a few tube and ball type waterers crack along the cap or get hit from the outside and have the cap just slide off the threads and all the water end up on the floor. I am replacing every single water bottle with top fill as I have the money. We mostly use the heated ones because we only check the rabbits at most once a day and often only every other day since they are 30mins away from where we live now so we need heated water that will last that long in the winter and the heated bottles are a little pricey.

 

[HendricksHearth]

We didn't have good experiences with the Lixit top-fills, unfortunately. Only the strongest of my rabbits would use them when really thirsy.. I think the peg nozzle was too stiff or difficult for some of them to work with. I also found that when you need to pull the bottles off the cage to wash that they will randomly crack as the plastic is much more rigid than on my other bottles. We ended up putting the couple left in storage for the time being and now all of our water bottles are just the basic TSC type with the ball nozzle. Some of them are 2-3 years old now and are still going strong- not bad for $2-3.

Best of luck,

Lauren

 

[Random Rabbit]

Thank You. Something more to consider...( it seems as tho the buns keep getting more and more expensive !!lol.)

 

[fuzzy9]

Most all of our cages have the top fill, and we love them. I do have some of the roller ball ones that I use in the quarantine cages. If we get some rabbits that are more used to crocks, and can't figure out the top fill bottles, I transition them to the top fill using the roller ball bottles. I find the top fills so much easier to fill, and scrub out also. Take the top off, and a couple swishes with the bottle brush, and it's clean. If I were comparing the top fill to the roller ball bottles, my rabbits that use the top fill drink way more water than the ones that use the roller ball bottles! WAY more! They can lick and lick and lick on those, and they just don't get as much as they do from the top fills.

 

[curlysue]

Iuse them but i like the ones from KW cages better.some of my rabbits refuse too drink from the lixit top fill.i also have too clean the lxiit ones more often on account of hard water .however it saves a lot of time.

 

[SilverBlaze85]

I tried the top-fill, but Ollie was too little to get the peg moved (it's REALLY stiff), so I just took it back and got a regular roller-ball. I was hoping it would be more convenient, because then I wouldn't have to wrestle the bottle off the cage, just crack open the top and refill, but it didn't seem to be in our cards. Ah well.

 

[akane]

My recent netherland x mini rex litter drank from the lixit valve type to the point I had to put a second one on the cage and once kits were moved Tsuya went back to only having 2/3rds of one empty so I don't think it's a matter of not being able to move it. They were definitely drinking from 2weeks on. Some rabbits seem a bit dense though. We've had 2 now who just plain couldn't get it even after putting their mouth on it several times. We finally gave those 2 dog bowls and had to put the one bowl up on a stand over the lixit bottle so the doe could jump up to drink and the kits couldn't drown while the kits used the lixit valve bottle. We just shift the dog bowl, pour through the mesh in to the lixit, and then put the dog bowl back on the stand and fill it. It worked well for the last 2 litters by that doe. Then Arinsu who's barely drank out of bottles since he's been a colony rabbit with chicken waterers most of his life finally got the lixit valve 2 months later right before I put him back down in the colony. We had to buy him a small heated bowl on sale when the water got too cold for the ball waterer I had on his cage.

 

[Bad Habit]

I have a super pet top fill waterbottle that's got a roller ball. My main complaint is that it doesn't have the little ducky in it, so it can sometimes be an issue to just glance at it and see if the bottle has water. It was about the same cost as any other water bottle in the pet store, and it doesn't leak at all. I decided to go with this one solely because when I had guineas, I had trouble with the bottles leaking at the cap, and I wanted to eliminate having to take the cap off so often. The top on this one is just a flap of thick rubbery plastic, but the water seems to stay clean.

 

[akane]

In 6 months I can't see the object in the bottle anymore anyway no matter how well it's cleaned so I usually end up removing them as floating algae balls. Most bottles are too tinted. I've only got one that I don't know the brand which is very clear slightly blue plastic but you don't need an object in it because you can see the water level from across the room due to being so clear.

 

[OneAcreFarm]

We started with Lixit top fill and they worked pretty good, except the plastic flap on top where you fill gets brittle and breaks off. In the heat of the summer, the rabbits did not seem to be getting enough water with the stem valve so we switched to roller balls.

 

[Frosted Rabbits]

I 'sorta' liked my lixit top fills-- but the valves were unpredicatable-- some rabbits could use them, others could not-- and it was a valve thing-- not the rabbit (switch bttles on the cage, the rabbits would or wold not continue drinking) AND, if I wanted to move abottle, or move a cage, I could not just take the bottle off and set it aside-- a consideration when hauling and warming well water in the winter!!!

 

[Secuono]

I don't like them, they aren't sealed on and leak and hard to carry.

 

[trinityoaks]

I have the ball-end type of water bottles for my rabbits. I've tried the pin-end type, and my rabbits couldn't operate them. I now have a couple of flip-top travel-sized bottles. I haven't actually looked at the ends to see what type they are, but I do like the flip-top concept, especially for travel.

When we get moved into our new place (hopefully this fall), I plan to have an automatic watering system, but still with the ball-end tips.

 

[akane]

You have to make sure junk doesn't get in the valve. Spray it out or run a small brush around it and wipe anything out. Otherwise you will get some bottles that get harder to drink out of because rabbit poop, bedding, pellet bits, etc.. in small chips can get stuck in them. Haven't had it happen often though. Maybe 1 in 4 once a year so far.

 

[Random Rabbit]

Wow... i had forgotten about this thread....

We did get 6 of the top fill bottles with the pin. just to see what we think of them. Some rabbits did quite well with them. Some flat would not use them. We found that if we started a litter right out with that kind of spigot they would use it ok.

Now that it is winter ( well sorta....) we've got all crocks for water. Actually those are easier to work with than the bottles.