Water bottle vs. water bowl

[mgood01]

Has anyone had much luck getting their birds to drink from bottles rather than bowls?

[birdlady49]

I've never used water bottles because I would get lazy. They need to be cleaned just as frequently (daily) as bowls, despite rumors to the contrary. Besides, my birds like to take head dunks in the bowls and I would not remove that pleasure from their lives.

[Xray Susie]

My breeder said don't use a bottle because the birds do like to dunk in the bowl. However, the water was getting poopy and so soiled several times a day. I bought a bottle, and had both in the cage for about 3 weeks.

I would put the bottle above the water bowl. I took my finger and, from behind the cage, tapped the ball in the drinking tube, so he could see the water drip. He would try it after a while, but I waited a long time before removing the bowl. I had to make absolutely sure that he was drinking from the bottle.

First I only removed the bowl at night, and put it back in the day. Once I was sure, I removed the bowl, and he drinks from the bottle, and his water is clean.

[denmor55]

My Amazons, Greys, Quakers, Lovebirds and most of my Conures know nothing but water bottles. The bottles get cleaned once a week or sooner if needed and I have not had any problems.

[Tishrei]

Ducky has two water bowls, I've never tried a water bottle with him. However, I don't have pooping in the water issue. He does dunk his food so he has a dunking bowl next to his food bowl and and drinking bowl on the other side of the cage. I have purchased a lot of water bowls so I don't have to wash them daily. Every day, I simply put them in the dishwasher and give him new clean bowls with fresh water.

[Nazir's]

Originally Posted by Xray Susie

My breeder said don't use a bottle because the birds do like to dunk in the bowl. However, the water was getting poopy and so soiled several times a day.

And that's the reason why most people that use them prefer them over bowls. Personally, I have not ever used anything besides a bowl but I've heard many owners at bird shows swear by the water bottles. They can't be all that bad and I'd imagine if you put just a few drops of GSE inside the water inside of the bottle, it would keep it fresher longer.

[PowerBBS]

We offer both actually. I originally got the bottles because of the same reasons noted above (dirty water). But also to save us some money.

Because our fids get their water dirty so fast during the day it was getting very expensive to be dumping it out all the time to make sure our fids had good clean/fresh water at all times. We go thru at least 5 gallons of water every 3 weeks (and we only use the bottled water for the birds - we drink tap). We change water on average a minimum of twice a day during the week and up to four times a day on the weekends.

Needless to say during the week, we're at work, so that's why it's so limited, and we'd change water just before we left and as soon as we got home as the water would just be nasty with food and such. So to save us some money and so forth, we started bottle training on three of our fids. Now we have to change the bowls only maybe twice a day as the fids usually drink out of the bottles but use the bowls for dunking food.

Typically as soon as we change the bowls they'll take a dip/bath and we end up changing it immediately again anyway. But still it saves us some money. We've actively doubled the term a 5 gal jug lasts us now to over 5 weeks.

So for us. It's not bowl vs bottle... it's bowl with bottle to save on water waste.

[charlieandmom]

I use the bottle for my tiels because of the poop they kept putting in there bowls. It also gives them a little extra room in there cages. I put a bowl on top of the cage every other day or so they can still stick there heads in or bathe. They took to the bottle rather quickly. Didn't seem to mind.

[huntress]

I have discovered a nice way of getting them trained to a bottle. I LOVE bottles, but there are certain rules to live by.
Clean them often but you dont have to do it daily (i have had the water in them tested)
If you can get ones without the springloaded ball its easier for small birds
I personally use ones with a stem for the bigger birds as there is NO Vaccume formed to suck bac into making it much cleaner, and they dont leak unless broken..
I have nEVER had a problem with bacteria.
CHECK DAILY with your finger to be sure they are working properly. They rarley get stuck but some have the ability to do so.
I can leave for a day and not worry my birds are going to have poopy, foody, feathery water.
I have succesfully been able to teach every single bird to use one (even the 9 yo rescue who never saw one got it in a few days).

With the small birds I simply replace the water dish with one of those plastic drinking tubes with the little elongated cup at the bottom? And remove the water dish. Thats easy for them to figure out cause the water is right there and easy to get at - just a smaller opening. They get to seeing the "tube" of water and knowing water is there. After a few days of that I remove it and take off the tube. Snap the base cup back into place with a little bit of water sitting in it. I then hang the new water bottle filled with the metal tube hanging right above the little cup so in order to try to get at the water in the cup (which they can smell BTW) they almost have to bump or push around the stem (real close, make it almost impossible to reach the water) but not hard to reach the ball. Its almost like they do it onec or twice and realize they are having water come out of the tube. A few days of that and i remove the cup which has usually dried up and they have got it figured out
It actually has worked for everybody and I am just about to do the switch on a new small bird today by taking down the tube and adding the bottle. So if anyone is interested I can post pics, just say so. I took some - the battery pack is charging.

You can still put a dish in at a later date for dunking ,swimming, splashing, whatever - after your bird has successfully learned that the water bottle is a good spot for a little drinky poo.

[Savery]

both of my birds have bottles. There is also a dish on the top of the cage for splashing, but at least I don't have to worry about pellet soup. The senegal was water bottle trained, and the conure took to it immediately. No, I don't change them every day, I wash the stopper and bottle in the dishwasher on high heat to kill any bacteria. Water in a jug stays good for months, and there really isn't a big difference between water coolers and a bottle.