Drinking enough water?

[Ana]

She’s a young dwarf (maybe 2 lbs) and she’s drinking MAYBE an ounce of water a day… Should I be worried? She’s acting fine.

[RachelF]

did you try letting her drink out of a water crock/bowl? it is said that buns drink more out of a bowl than they would a water bottle.

[bunnyluvr]

You can also try adding a little apple or pineapple juice to the water to encourage her to drink more. Just make sure you use unsweetend juice. My little Fuzzy started ignoring his water, was barely drinking and I tried this. Now he’s drinking no problem. I usually do 1/4 of juice and 3/4 of water.

[Ang]

moreland bairly drinks. i feed him lots of fresh greens and was told not to worry. he gets nutrients and water from greens. he also drinks better out of a bowl.

[jerseygirl]

I have this issue too. Weather is not hot here yet so i’m sure I’ll see increase in drinking as it warms up. Getting nice wet greens should take care of water needs (as I was assured when I posted about this also). Do you think the type or size of the bowl would help them drink? I noticed Jersey drinking along the the rim last night-sort of sideways – if that makes sense?!

[Beka27]

rabbits drink an average of betw/ 2 and 4 oz a day. this can vary by size, by temperature, by activity level. some bunnies drink more, some less.

you can try a bowl (or heavy crock) in addition to a water bottle and see if there is a preference.

i wouldn’t recommend putting juice in the water to entice drinking, it might get to the point where she would ONLY drink if there was juice in there, then you have a big problem.

bunnies get a lot of water from their veggies. another thing you can do is leave the veggies very, very wet after washing so the bun is taking in even more water.

even if she’s not drinking a lot of water, i would still refresh the water bottle everyday… b/c sitting water is icky. ;o)

[Ana]

I do make her veggies very wet. I tried to put a bowl of water in there, too, but she just seemed annoyed and avoided it.  She got some beddign and poo in there… :/

[Beka27]

you know what she’s taking in, so as long as she seems healthy, happy and the poop/pee is normal, i wouldn’t worry excessively about it.

[MooBunnay]

I think that the most important thing is that your bunny has access to clean water, and knows how to get to it. I use crocks for all of my bunnies, its funny because I just adopted a lop and she gets both her ears in the water whens she drinks because she is used to a bottle! As long as she seems to be acting normally, I don’t think it sounds like much of a problem – the only problem would be if she wasn’t drinking because she was having trouble using the water bottle, or if the water in the crock got dirty.

[kimberleyanddarren]

if your bunny has constant access to clean water they will drink it as they need, if there is no other signs of illness i would say go to the vet but if thats it then i would think its normal, you could try leaving the veggies a little wet and adding juice to the water.

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