What would work best for my situation? Bottles or system?

[golden rabbitry]

So I have a pretty small rabbitry. 10 cages, a 3 unit inside the rabbit house, a single cage on the other side of the house (house is an overstatement, it's only 8x12 but we call it a house) and a 6 unit cage outside, 3 on top, 3 underneath. I use bottles since normally only 6 cages have rabbits and since I used to only have 4. 2 are now retired and living their days out, 4 are breeding rabbits. They don't drink much since their hollands and are tiny but I was able to upgrade my stock so I can breed my own breeding rabbits and actually keep some for future breeding so the rabbitry is probably going to grow.

Now that the entire background is explained, the question is: Do I stick with bottles that get refilled every 2 days or should I make a watering system?

I know it doesn't seem like much work to refill a few bottles everyday but I'm still in high school and a very lazy teenager who doesn't want to wake up 30 minutes earlier just to fill water up, any ideas/thoughts are appreciated!

 

[hotzcatz]

If rabbits are just going to be a temporary thing for a year or so, then a water system may or may not be needed. But, if you're gonna keep rabbits for years, then a water system will save tons of time. A half hour a day adds up to quite a bit of time eventually.

Plus, if for some reason there's not enough time to refill the water bottles, they will still have water.

 

[sarai]

go for a systom

 

[golden rabbitry]

How does it work with it not freezing in the winter?

 

[a7736100]

You can use some kind of heating system to keep water from freezing.
I use bowls in freezing weather. They can at least lick the ice whereas they'll get nothing from frozen bottles. Some days I fill the bowls with lukewarm water so it stays liquid longer.

 

[PTJeff]

i use these for 1 season and worked great...however rabbits chew and they are plastic therefor didn't last

Ive tried several methods for the "systems", the reservoir stays fluid but the water freezes at the nipple making it useless.
Ive resigned the fact that I'll have to do manual watering during the cold NE winters. Ive used this version and have had much less bowl tossing and flipping

if you dont mind the wait, ive ordered these through AliExpress for a much more affordable price

 

[hotzcatz]

What were they called on aliexpress? Their search engine isn't very fluent in English.

 

[Preitler]

I use 12V 10W heating pads under ceramic and steel bowls, the steel bowls (for dogs, tip-proof with no handle holes) work better. And an adjustable power supply, power reduced to 5W is good for down to -10°C. Best addition to my hutches ever.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/12V-10W-60-60mm ... SwaRhgO4-E