Watering system questions

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Chinniechantel

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I am getting really sick of filling up 60+ water bottles daily. I am considering a watering system, but would like people's advice and experiences.

My biggest concern is, how do you know if it is not working in one cage? What is the best brand or style? Do the chins all figure it out? How much, about, will it cost for 60 cages, and how many of each part do I need, I was looking at Edstrom and they are just so confusing! Thank you!
 
Edstrom is the way to go. Edstrom was a chinchilla rancher and engineer, it was designed for chins first. Buy it from AG Select.

As for consumption you need to be observant and base it on their eating and droppings.
 
What I would recommend is maybe getting 10 nozzles and put together a sort of practice system to see if you like it. The problems that I had with watering systems were that it was hard to clean, the nozzles would stop working every now and then, and I couldn't keep tabs on individual water consumption...oh, and every now and then it would leak.

I actually scraped my systems and went back to bottles a couple years back. It's less stressful for me because I don't have to worry about the system failing...if it leaks and then no one has water, if the nozzle clogs up and I don't find it in time, if one of the nozzles fails and all the water ends up in one cage and the poor chins get really wet!

The system does have its advantages, mostly that it can be refilled more quickly. I was constantly having to check every nozzle and cleaning it would take a couple hours. I'd have to take all the tubing down and clean it, clean the reservoir and clean the nozzles individually.

The nozzles that I have came from a ranch, but they are similar to the Edstrom type. Klubertanz would be a good place to contact about the possible configuration you could try, I like working with them. :)
 
what I use

This may help you also Item number/Stock number
(this is what I have and use)
A102 Standard Valve 3/16 barb, brass clip
A202 Tank Connector 3/16 with strainer and Shut off (I get one of these for each 12 cages incase some one puts a pine chip in the valve and lets all the water out of the tank they only do it to one stack of cages *I have only had it happen 3 times in 4 years not that often but can happen)
A401 Flex Tubing black 3/16
A405 Barb Tee 3/16

I would also suggest a few extra parts incase you need them.
A209
A210
 
Thank you so much everyone, I need to give this some serious thought. I don't want to go back to bottles after paying for it and stuff, but as it sounds it is the same amount of work almost, and more worrisome. Darn, I thought it was such a good idea!
 
It is a good idea if your time means anything to you and after 20 years of being off bottles I would do it no other way than a Edstrom watering system. With 1200 cages I can't even imagine the amount of work and time with bottles. As far as monitoring water intake I could never monitor how much each animal was drinking with 1200 water bottles anyway. The trick to knowing if they are drinking with a water system is to closely monitor feed intake and droppings. They will not eat or eat very little if they do not have water. As far as cleaning I clean the tanks once a month and the water lines I have no problems with now that I use peroxide in the water. Yes you do get a leaky nipple now and then but you can also use a metal guard to divert the water out of the cage if it leaks.
 
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