Fresh and clean water has to be provided permanently if you are keeping Guinea Pigs. Mouldy water has to be replaced quickly. You do your best if you replace the water daily and water the flowers with the old one to conserve water.
Requirement of “rodent water”
In many countries you can buy special water called “rodent-water” or something similar in pet shops. But if you take care in feeding your cavies diversified there is no need to buy any of these products. They do not need special water – filled with dietary supplements or anything like that. Healthily cavies do not need supplemented vitamins in expensive synthetic products.
If your tap water is in good condition it will fit your cavies needs like yours and you can provide it.
Water requirements for Guinea Pigs
A cavy needs about 100ml fresh water every day. But there are cavies who do not drink so much. This is no problem if they get the water from fresh food. Cucumbers and other vegetables contains a lot of water. But you have to provide water also separate. Other Guinea Pigs drink very much water. If one of your cavies really swig go for a veterinarian. May be it has diabetes.
- Do never mix sugar or salt into the water
- Do never provide distilled water
- Do never provide alcohol
- Providing water supplemented with vitamins is not necessary if you feed them varied
- Do always provide water you would drink too
How to provide Guinea Pigs fresh water
Water has to be accessible easy. There are many different kinds to provide water. Your choice how to provide it should be based on the priority of your cavies. Test which system they used most frequent.
- Drink bottle
The drink bottle is widely used. It is clipped from the outside of the cage with a small pipe into it. The pipe is shortened at the end and a small ball inside prevents leakage. The cavy needs to hit against this ball continuous to drink and every clap supplies only a drop of water. This generates the classic clicking sound when rodents are drinking They have to hit the ball often. - Sippy bottles
Sippy bottles has a great benefit compared to the classic drink bottle: The opening is closed with a small gib the cavies only need to lift a bit to keep the water flowing continuous. The tongue does not have to work so much and drinking becomes easier. For that reason our cavies prefer Sippi. And of course we also do so. - Bowl
The bowl might be the best because they do not need to forge their heads. This makes drinking easy. But for some reason most Guinea Pigs does not really like bowls. Bowls have the great disadvantage that the water will be polluted with litter, litter-dust, hay and something like that quickly if you have got active cavies in your cage. They won’t dink water like that. Test it.
If you are keeping Guinea Pigs outdoors you have to secure that the water does not freeze. There are several systems available. Do never mix antifreeze into the water!
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