MAKING HOMESTEAD CHORES EASIER - HOOKING UP THE RABBIT WATERING SYSTEM
Normally, this is one of the most time-consuming chores on the homestead.
At times, we've have upwards of twenty rabbits. In the end, that is a lot of individual water bottles to be filling on a daily basis. When I worked out a deal with a 13 year old entrepreneur, I got his watering system too. Mostly, I wanted it as a prototype, so I could understand the basic idea. I know that I could grasp the concept by surfing the web and watching videos online, but I prefer to be a hands on learner. Plus, it was a blessing to the young man for me to purchase it from him.
HOOKING IT UP
The concept is very simple. A large bucket serves as the reservoir and feeds multiple drinking stations by connecting them all with one long hose. The system that I purchased from the young man was kind of old and corroded, so I picked up new parts to replace it with.
The actual drinking nozzles were a chore to come by. Interestingly enough, I could not find them anywhere in town. I suppose that selling water bottles for $5 and up is much for profitable than selling these attachments for 20 cents each, which is about what I paid for them online.
Yes, I needed help with this project too. Trust me, when you live your life with your family, they are always around somewhere, and helpers sure can come in handy. Here is Pinkie-Pepper cutting some hose to length. She had a lot of experience measuring lately!
This was a little trick that I learned along the way. By inserting the tapered head of a pen into the hose, it stretches it out somewhat and prepares it to fit onto the drinking attachments much easier. Since the connector part of the attachment is this plastic, it could break rather easily if you weren't careful.
Now the parts slide together with less effort and risk of breaking them. It was a bit of a time consuming process, but it'll save us a lot of time in the end. Here's to doing the bulk of the labor up front and then reaping a return on that investment!
IT FILLS SO EASILY NOW!
Now we can supply the rabbits with up to five gallons of new water at a time! Just by filling this one bucket all of the rabbits hooked up to this system will be supplied with water. This is so much better!
We will have to keep an eye on it when things freeze, as this system will not work when frozen. We will still have the old bottles as a backup, so we can rotate them in when needed. I've got a few more systems to hook up, but we sure enjoy streamlining the process.
The rabbits seem to enjoy it too! They will have much less of a risk of running out of water now, which will be really nice, especially in the heat of summer next year. If you have more than one rabbit, I would highly recommend looking into a watering system like this. While keeping animals certainly has its benefits, the chores that come along with them can be laborious. Anything that we can streamline just allows us more time to enjoy other things!
As always, I'm @papa-pepper and here's the proof:
proof-this-chore-just-got-easier
Until next time…
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Putting the end of the hose in hot water will soften it and make it easier to fit over the fitting, can be done multiable times for a longer fitting, heavier hoses.
If you could find a clear, see-through bucket the little peppers could see when they had to refill it, and when to turn the hose off.
That's how I fit my irrigation sprayers into it's hose. I also found that leaving the hose to sit in the barn through a night of cold and coming back to it during a 80 degree day also helped soften the hose. But not going to fib, our hands were still raw after the first 20 minutes of jamming those pieces in, hot water, tools and all.
Wow! That's a great idea! I'll try it.
Heck yeah! I would think you could keep it from freezing by having it raised up higher towards sunlight and wrapping it in black, even black plastic contractor bags. Just like those solar camping showers, or those passive solar water heater systems that sit on the roof. And keeping the water circulating with a fish pump bubbler.-idk if your off grid. I use large bubblers and heated hose to keep my 4000 gallon compost tea IBC from entirely freezing in the winter. The bubbler would keep the water fresh too. I would think using pipe insulation for the main hosing on the rabbit water would keep the hose from totally freezing.
Nice! Good thinking!
Wow good innovation
Work smarter not harder and yup that will save time!
Amen to that.
Another great project, thanks for sharing.
Thank you for checking it out!
Wow!!!! What a photograph!i like your post . thanks for your post.
Very good idea. The bunnies will shake their little happy tail :D
Yes they will!
@papa-pepper That's a really useful tip! Engineering at its best. Thank you for that!
Glad to hear that you like it!
Nice to see the power of automation at work!
No kidding! Makes life easier!