well i've had my fun for the day! lol.

[ChinnyMom]

grrrr....... this is definitely a case of 'hindsight is 20-20', lol.

i usually check in on Rhino about mid-day, to see if he needs any more pellets, water, or hay, and to see if he's awake and would like a scritch or two.

i glance at his water bottle. empty! what the heck??? he couldn't have drank a whole bottle since i refilled it last night (it's one of the big ones).

i look at his fleece. i see a colour difference around his water bottle area........

dang bugger chewed through his plastic water bottle! this was after using the same bottle since the day he came home.

so out he comes for an impromptu daytime playtime, i set to work getting the fleece out of his cage. well dagnabit, the wood base underneath is a bit damp. ok, haul his old superpet cage out of the storage room, give it a quick cleaning, move a couple shelves in, hammock, log house, a few hanging toys, food dish, litter pan...... yeah, you get the idea.

i wasn't sure how long he'd been without water, so i offered a small dish with just an inch in it during playtime, but Rhino was more concerned with wall surfing and playing in his cardboard tube, lol.

then give my stepmom a call 'hey, you doing anything? want to zip me over to petsmart real quick?'. thankfully she was able to!

so i picked up a superpet glass and metal water bottle. lets see the lil bugger try and chew this one! hahaha!

and the best (insert sarcastic snort here) part is...... last time i was in petsmart i was looking at the glass water bottles, considering buying one, but said to myself 'nah, Rhino hasn't tried to chew on his plastic one at all, i don't think i need to get a glass one......' doh! lol..

 

[Brittany]

so i picked up a superpet glass and metal water bottle.

What a little stinker. There must be a full moon or something because Latte made a mad dash for freedom when I opened the cage to change out her food this morning(that's a new one for her).

I just wanted to add that I've had 3 of those superpet bottles go bad on me in the last 6 months. Next time you're at the store you may want to pick up a back up just to have on hand.

 

[Cookie]

haha what a crazy lil guy. At least you caught it before he'd been ot of water for too long.

oh by the way I also have the glass super pet water bottle so far it's worked great, as the water level gets lower it tends to drip a bit but it never soaks my fleece; at most its just slightly damp in like a dime sized area right under the nozzle.

 

[Myt]

same thing happened to me yesterday. in the month i've had my chins they've never bothered to chew on their water bottle. yesterday they decided they were going to destroy it in a matter of a few hours.

 

[Siany]

I got a superpet glass bottle a while ago and have had no problems, im glad i got it now just in case haha the little trouble makers

 

[3CsMommy]

Lovely. One of mine (Nova, I think) figured out how to knock the Water Buddy off the cage. I've had 4 spills from a full 12 oz bottle to clean up in the last week.

Also, I've got a couple of Lixit glass bottles I'm not using. If you'd want one of those as a backup, PM me.

 

[Pikaia]

Wow, I hope you don't jinx me chinnymom!

 

[Sandi]

When I first got into chins, I only had plastic water bottles and I swear they never lasted more than a week on their cages. I bought a glass one for them once but they would make it come loose and one day it just broke into a million pieces on the wood floor below their cage. After spending a little fortune on that mistake, I started buying only glass bottles and moved their cage to a carpeted room.

 

[addictedtochins]

I always thought I was prepared with a back up water bottle until the "Great Water Bottle Disaster" My new backup didn't work, nor the second or third ones I bought. Always check your backup before you store it away.

 

[ChinnyMom]

haha what a crazy lil guy. At least you caught it before he'd been ot of water for too long.

oh by the way I also have the glass super pet water bottle so far it's worked great, as the water level gets lower it tends to drip a bit but it never soaks my fleece; at most its just slightly damp in like a dime sized area right under the nozzle.

i figure he couldn't have been out of water for too long, as i peeked in on him in the morning before my kiddo and i headed off for her school. water was in the bottle then, and fleece was dry. that was at 8 am, and when i discovered his naughtiness, it was about quarter to noon. being as he was frisky while out during the clean up and cage switcheroo, and ignoring the dish of water, i'm pretty sure thirst/dehydration wasn't an issue.

i'm getting a fleece liner soon from Annie (it's on it's way in the mail, yay!), and i'm not sure if it has terry cloth as a middle layer or not, but if it doesn't the two layers of fleece should be enough to soak up the odd drip. i could also put another glass canister lid (same as Rhino's toybox) under the water bottle, with a bit of shavings in it, to soak up any drips, but if it got to that point i'd be looking for a better bottle anyway.

the nice thing about the plastic bottle was that i could give it a teensy squeeze after filling and inverting, and that would create a better vacuum and that bottle never dripped.

 

[LovinTheSmallAndFurry]

Just had to interject my two cents,

I've purchased both a Super Pet and an All Living Things water bottle (got it at Petsmart in the birds' section). So far I am very pleased with the latter bottle....very little dripping, and much bigger. The Super Pet has had awful problems with no water flow (and I've had it about two weeks); only when I am actually at the cage, jiggling it does any water come out. My poor little man--it's his bottle. Getting a new one ASAP.

 

[ChinnyMom]

i checked this new superpet one extensively for proper function when i put it on Rhino's cage, and it is working really well. just peeked in on the lil fuzzbutt now and he's definitely been drinking from it - water is down about an inch and there is evidence of a huge pee in his litter bowl. i do see one drop of water on the cage's metal pan floor, but no sign of any drips overnight (poops right under the water bottle are dry, as is a pellet).

 

[LovinTheSmallAndFurry]

i checked this new superpet one extensively for proper function when i put it on Rhino's cage, and it is working really well. just peeked in on the lil fuzzbutt now and he's definitely been drinking from it - water is down about an inch and there is evidence of a huge pee in his litter bowl. i do see one drop of water on the cage's metal pan floor, but no sign of any drips overnight (poops right under the water bottle are dry, as is a pellet).

Glad it's working well for you,

 

[michellemonster]

drakenstein has destroyed 7 of those plastic ones until i finally just got him a glass one. and my girls unhook the latch on their water bottle. they even ripped the hooks off of one of the holders. now im holding them onto the cage with some fleece. little jerks

 

[Chintastic!]

If you have the glass part of the superpet bottle, a standard nozzle will fit on to it. I have several of them where the original nozzle rusted but I had some old plastic ones from when they chewed though the bottle. They take a little more elbow grease to get on but work fine.

 

[mishellyshel]

My one chin had a plastic bottle on the outside of his cage for over 1 year and never touched it. One day I went to check on them and his fleece was all wet. It was such a small hole that I didnt notice a leak so I refilled it and put it back. next day same thing. So I ditched the bottle and gave him another one. same thing happened! he chewed a small hole in that one too. So i switched to the glass ones for him. but had to go thru 2 of the super pet smaller ones before i found one that actually worked. Initially he had a glass one, but the glass one above it fell onto it and crashed to the ground and broke in some freak accident. so i have definitely had water bottle issues here.

 

[ChinnyMom]

i kept the nozzle cap from the old bottle, just in case i should need it. couldn't justify throwing out a perfectly good nozzle from a chewed bottle. it's the same size diameter (the cap/threads part) as the superpet, so i have a spare, yay!

and Michelle, that's exactly the way Rhino chewed his! just a teensy lil hole. if it wasn't for me inspecting the bottle carefully i would have missed it.

i'm not worried about the glass bottle falling and breaking, it's hung on the cage not even a foot above the ground (cage sits on the floor, no stand), and in my room is carpet with pretty thick underlay.

 

[addictedtochins]

I like the clip on spring fasteners. If your bottle doesn't come with one you can get it at the hardware store. Oh, that's another thing. If the bottle isn't hanging very vertically and is leaning back instead of snug against the cage wall it may not work well either. That is another reason I like the springs.

 

[ChinnyMom]

the glass bottle came with two fasteners, a spring one for the top of the bottle (there is a groove in the glass for it to fit into), and a wire hanger for the bottom of the bottle (the nozzle end) to rest in. it's perfectly upright and snug against the cage, to the point where it's a pain in the tookus to get it off the cage for cleaning/refilling, but at least Rhino shouldn't be able to knock it down at all! lol.