Water bottles or gravity fed water system for rats?

I used bottles and it was a pain, but then I never had a flood. Filling all the bottles took only about 10-15 minutes, but I also only had two racks of rats, with two bottles of water on each.

Bottles won't flood the bin.
Water lines don't run out and won't need replaced once or twice a day, and don't need rinsed out and don't make as much clackedy-clack noises.

So water system would win out on me if I went back to breeding my own rats.

It really depends on your setup and your budget. If you only have a few bins, than it's a catch 22. It's convenient and easy to use a water system, but do you NEED it for just a few bins?
I have racks with water systems, and so far(knock on my head), I've never had a single problem with a flood.
I also have about 130 lab cages with stopper style bottles. Not hard to fill, but it is time consuming...If I could figure out a way to easily get a water system on lab cages, I'd be all over it... Convienience far out weighs the cost in my opinion...

My vote goes to the bottles because they keep they flood less, even though they're more annoying.

Once you get above a few dozen bottles you will be begging for an auto watering system. LOL.

I haven't ever had one flood, but I know that they certainly can. Once your rat colony gets to a certain size having the auto watering system saves you literally HOURS of time every day. That is worth the trade in my opinion.

keep your system maintained and properly adjusted and you not have floods.

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

keep your system maintained and properly adjusted and you not have floods.

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Some floods are unavoidable. For instance, if the little furry darlings push a bunch of bedding up under the valve. It happens, but not often enough to really worry about it.

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Originally Posted by tomfromtheshade

Some floods are unavoidable. For instance, if the little furry darlings push a bunch of bedding up under the valve. It happens, but not often enough to really worry about it.

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This exact thing happened to me today. I have a top of the line Alternative Design Rat Rack with a built-in anti-flooding rail. They still managed to flood it by pushing the bedding just like you said it was unavoidable. The drinking nozzles are not inside the tubs but they can reach them by sticking their snouts out a little bit so if there is a drip it drips unto the anti-flooding rail. They managed to create a bridge from the nozzle to the inside of the tub and therefore the water got in. Lucky for me there were no babies just sub-adults and they where swimming and breathing but hypothermic and almost to the point of drowning. I took them out and put them under a heat lamp and in an hour they where back to health.

Can't stop sneezing from all the dust.
Geez, it's a bit old.

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Originally Posted by suzuki4life

keep your system maintained and properly adjusted and you not have floods.

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Wrong..

When your water is as hard as mine, it was unavoidable.. I had floods, not from the rats clogging the nozzles, but from my nozzles getting lymed up constantly.. It's so bad that I have to soak all my faucet screens in my bathrooms and kitchen monthly to avoid water sprays and run a half a cup of vinegar in every single dishwasher load.

I eventually gave up trying to take apart every nozzle and pick out both rubber gaskets in each one carefully each time just to soak them. Then if you don't position the gaskets and pin just right, and then make sure to finger tighten everything just right, they will drip.

THEN!!!!

Later on you think everything is fine but as soon as the rats start using the nozzle, something isn't right and it starts dripping! You tighten it and it drips faster.. You take it apart and re set the o-ring but it still wants to drip!

Yeah... I switched to the largest water bottles I could find and I'm Sooooooooo much happier.. 2 years of random floods, extreme maintenance, and so on.. Plus it smells worse when it floods. Especially since it always seems to happen the day before bedding changing day.

I'm freeeeeee!

I also used the Big Apple style of lab cages with water bottles. We had 16-20 tubs at any given time and didn't have a problem with water bottles . We would do a quick check every day for empty or almost empty bottles and just replace them with full bottles of which we had several extras. Take empty bottles to sink, do a quick rinse in very light bleach solution, rinse refill and they're ready for use.

I was tempted from time to time to switch over to water system but the hard water issue was important for us where we lived. Heard an awful lot of lime deposits causing more problems in watering systems than just about anything else.