Pigs won't use water bottles, can't keep water bowls clean 🙄

Cheekypigs

Cheekypigs

Teenage Guinea Pig
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Usual problem with pigs not drinking enough. They know how to use water bottles but they Will Not. They prefer to drink from bowls, but they make the water gross in a few hours and then won't drink it any more.

Any suggestions? I'm wondering if those self-filling drinkers for chickens would work.
 
Honestly I feel unfortunately it’s going to get messy anyway, as piggies will climb all over it or drop hay in it.
The issue with the self filling one is that I do not think it would remove the issue of the sat water getting messy, as if they are not drinking the ‘dirty’ water it would have no reason to refill.

I wouldn’t urge you to dehydrate your pigs but I am wondering if you were to take the bowls away they might move towards using the bottles, although you have likely tried this already.
You could try adding multiple bowls to keep atleast one fresh, or if you want to try the bottles you can try multiple bottles aswell.
 
I think LittleAdventures on YouTube puts her water bowl on a kind of short log/platform that it is a bit raised, reducing stray poops flying into it etc.
You can see it at about 5:40 in this video: Little Adventures video.
 
Hi there, my pigs are also weird like that, but they just go to their bottles when they feel like. Maybe they're just not thirsty. Ironically the two who drank regularly are those who got the bladder stones.
With Geezer, who wasn't a big drinker until more recently, I had found that he loved water jellies. I found some on Amazon Japan, but I think they are sweetened (not sure, as I can't read Japanese and the photo translation thingie gives me different results every time) so not a great option. You can however talk to your vet and see if they can order them for you from a lab supply company. It's just plain gelified water that they use when transporting animals so their water won't spill or so they won't drown in it. Such suppliers only can sell to practices or laboratories, that's why. Maybe it's a bit overkill but if your pigs just won't drink, it's an option.
 
A few tips on getting piggies to drink more that I've tried and found to help as a few of mine suck at drinking too.
•Give every bowl/bottle a good scrub. Make sure to clean the spout too. Fill with filtered water. Refresh regularly. You wouldn't want to drink a glass of water that's been left out all day.
•Put water sources towards the back of the cage/hutch. Better still, by or in a hidey. Remember these guys are prey animals and the act of drinking in th open makes them vulnerable.
•Wet veggies/grass. When you give veg, give it a good rinse under running water and serve- don't dry it. They will consume more water that way. However this does mean they may drink less out of the bowl/bottle as they've consumed a lot when eating veggies. But that's normal. For peace of mind, maybe split their veg portion so they have half in the morning and in the evening.
 
Thanks for the help! I'm worried about it because I had a pig with bladder stones before. There are some good ideas here. I'm intrigued by the water jellies - I could make those myself if I knew what to use. I wonder if e.g. agar is safe for pigs?
 
I'm late to this but what I did was put a little bit of sugar in the water bottle to get my stubborn old piggy to use one. It worked like a charm, now he drinks out of a bottle without any sugar
 
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