Not drinking water?

Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum

Help Support Chinchilla & Hedgehog Pet Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
K

KayleighDUCK

Kayleigh
Joined
Sep 1, 2012
Messages
8
Location
Upstate New York
I recently adopted a 3-month-old female chinchilla, and she isn't drinking. It's been two days, and her poo is a light brown and not black like it's supposed to be, and also none of her water is gone. The woman I got her from said that she is used to water bottles, and I've tried those and bowls and she still won't drink. Is it something in my water...? I have well water from a natural spring under my house. I'm just getting very worried.
 
animals can be very finicky with water, from my experience. my horse would not drink water other than the iron rich water from the well at the stable i kept him at. if i trailered him anywhere, i had to haul that water with us.

get reverse osmosis bottled water. it is safest for chins.
 
Definitely get filtered water or r/o water. Also, make sure the current bottle that you are using in her cage actually works. Some bottles you may have to start on your own first.
 
Sandi said:
Also, make sure the current bottle that you are using in her cage actually works. Some bottles you may have to start on your own first.
Click to expand...

I definitely second this. I bought a new glass water bottle for my girls a few months ago. After a full 24 hours I was like hmmmm, why won't they drink from it? The water level isn't dropping? So, I unscrewed the cap to find a small plastic plug from the factory stuck in there so the water couldn't come out. It was a freak thing because I had purchased from this brand before and never had issues, but I still wasn't too happy about it!
 
Okay, I bought some bottled water and also a new smaller glass water bottle as I was using a large plastic one, and I made sure it works. Hopefully she starts drinking, though she hasn't yet. She won't let herself die from not drinking, right? I mean, if she gets thirsty enough she should drink... but I'm starting to doubt it.
 
She definately wont drink from a bowl. I agree if you are using a different type of bottle, it may take her time to figure out what it is and how to work it. Try kinda showing her that water comes from there. It took a minute for my chins to learn how to get water from my edstrom bottles. Also make sure you arent giving her tap water. You dont want to deal with the issues that comes along with that!
 
another trick is to cut a raisin open and rub the inside of it on the end of the water bottle spout. the taste from the raisin juice should get her interested in the water bottle and she may start drinking just by trying to lick the raisin juice off.

do not give her the raisin though! raisins are not safe treats for chins. the bit of raisin juice on the water bottle spout isn't going to hurt her though.
 
Mine won't drink anything but bottled water. We use a filter for tap water, both on the faucet and in pitchers. But she still only drinks bottled. And even then she's picky about the kind. :p
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top