# water bottle :(



## farmgirl (May 15, 2011)

so i know water bottles are bad but my baby refuses to drink out of anything else. she would like lick it then bite it then pull tug and chew on it. im scared that she will crack, chip, or break her teeth! so i need advice please
thank you 
-ally & milly


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## Guest (Oct 2, 2011)

place a water bowl directly under the bottle she will more then likely figure it out over a course of a week then remove the bottle once verifying multiple drinks from the bowl and leave just the drinking tube laying in the bowl for a day or two and then remove that has worked for others.

An ice cube in the water is said to help too idk about that one though...


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## CourtneyFaye (Jul 31, 2011)

TWCOGAR's advice is really good. That is what I would do. Try and let us know if it works


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## farmgirl (May 15, 2011)

ok thank you both!


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## CarliePickle (Sep 16, 2011)

Wait, water bottles are not safe? ): Oh no.


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## Guest (Oct 4, 2011)

CarliePickle said:


> Wait, water bottles are not safe? ): Oh no.


While there aren't that many reports of it hedgehogs have lost parts of their tongue and chipped teeth using water bottles and over all its kind sad watching a hedgie who has run for a good while bite and fight for a few drops at a time in an awkward position. Its the popular belief that a natural drinking position with quick access to water is better suited for hedgehogs.


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## shawnwk1 (Jul 8, 2011)

some people use them, but unlike rodents if they break their teeth on them which they can do from biting greedily at it then they will not grow back. also in order to drink from a bottle they have to tilt their heads up in an awkward position that is hard on their neck. a dish provides a more natural drinking position. it's also a lot easier for them to drink from should they ever become ill and can't raise their head far to drink.


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## CarliePickle (Sep 16, 2011)

Oh, wow. I'm going to try and see if he'll switch over to a bowl tonight then. That's scary!


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## Guest (Oct 4, 2011)

CarliePickle said:


> Oh, wow. I'm going to try and see if he'll switch over to a bowl tonight then. That's scary!


Just follow the original advice given cause not all hedgehogs get its water in the bowl right away


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## CarliePickle (Sep 16, 2011)

Yes, I will do that. The weird thing is that I actually already have a bowl under the water bottle. I guess it's just destined to be!


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## DexterTheHog (May 22, 2011)

Dexter had a really hard time figuring out how to drink out of a bowl
for a while I just sat there and watched him and when he was about to take a drink i'd hold his water bottle slowly under the water line in the bowl so he'd think he was drinking from the bottle but it was really the bowl
after about a week of that, i just stuck the top of the bottle in the bowl 
here's a pic: 









Then after like 2 weeks of that, i took the top of the bottle out and now he's a bowl champ! haha


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## melvin.carrion (Sep 28, 2011)

Who works better a bowl or a reptile water feeder like this?


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## lehaley (Jun 25, 2011)

melvin.carrion said:


> Who works better a bowl or a reptile water feeder like this?


You're probably better off going with a regular bowl rather than the automatic waterer. I thought about buying an automatic waterer, but I figured it didn't make much sense since I should really be changing my hedgie's water every day. I'm taking microbiology right now and learned that stagnant water is a really good place for some pretty icky microbes to grow. Plus I've found that Felix has a habit of getting his kibble in his water bowl and it tends to make his water gross.

Anyway, my point is... if you're going to be changing your hedgie's water daily, you might as well just get a bowl. If you get one big enough, you don't need to worry about your hedgie running out of water and a bowl is probably much cheaper than an automatic waterer.

As for switching from a bottle to a bowl, I had to make the switch with my hedgie as well. I did something similar to what DexterTheHog and a few others have mentioned. At first I left both the bottle and the full bowl in Felix's cage. After I saw him drinking from the bowl a few times, I took the lid off the bottle and put it in the bowl. When I was 100% sure he was consistently drinking from the bowl, I took the bottle lid out. I was super worried about making the switch, but it actually turned out to be easier than I thought!


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## melvin.carrion (Sep 28, 2011)

lehaley said:


> melvin.carrion said:
> 
> 
> > Who works better a bowl or a reptile water feeder like this?
> ...


Thanks!


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