Water Bottle

[Zahrii]

While browsing the forums, I came upon someone saying that water bottles that leak are a no-go as chins shouldn't get wet. I agree, but I have water bottles that do occasionally leak and I've almost never seen my boys get water on them. The only time they've gotten water on them was the first day or so they were with me, but it was just a very small droplet. They never use the bottles when they are leaking. The bottles usually leak when I refill them, and when their wheel is being used. The cage they have isn't the sturdiest, so the cage walls shake when they run on the wheel, which causes the bottle nozzles to slide across the horizontal bars, and lean against the vertical bars. Which makes the bottles themselves tilt. I correct the bottles 2-3 times a day. These are the bottles I use:
I have two of them, one on the first floor and another on the second floor. The plastic part of the nozzle is outside of the cage and out of reach, so only the metal part is available to them. I have trouble finding a leak-proof glass water bottle, but would I need to find a different one nonetheless? Also, how do you clean these water bottles for deep cleaning? I already have a routine for cleaning them, but I wanted to double check and see if I'm doing it right. I use a water bottle brush and a light drizzle of dish soap and scrub the inside of the bottle itself, and then give it multiple thorough rinses. Then I use the nozzle brush and give it another light drizzle of dish soap and just sort of scrub everywhere around the nozzle and inside where you screw the nozzle shut onto the bottle. I also rinse that VERY thoroughly, I even test it out myself a few times just to double, DOUBLE check there's no soap residue anywhere. Any tips would be appreciated.

 

[tunes]

I love Lixit bottles, but they do leak with a lot of motion. I haven't really found any bottle that doesn't leak at some point.

When I wash mine I put 2 drops of soap and a drop of bleach with very hot water. Shake the heck out of it, rub a brush around the inside, clean the nozzle with a straw cleaning brush, then rinse twice. I use the bleach drop because I can never guarantee that the same chin will get the same water bottle back. I wash too many for that.