# Pig nipples for water?



## velacreations

I have nipples for my pigs' water, and I love them. We also have nipples for the rabbits and poultry, too. They are wonderful. The animals have clean, fresh, cool water all the time, regardless if I am around or not. Are there goat nipples? When we had goats before, we watered them in a trough, but I don't want to do that again. I'd prefer something like the pig nipples. I think a goat could figure out how to drink out of a pig nipple, but has anyone ever used them? If so, how high do you put them and anything I should know about it?


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## goatgirl132

Yes goats can use pig nipples. If you have to pig nipples there's no use in spending money on goat nipples *shrug*.
Id say around head hight you could always adjust it if our using a pig waterer


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## velacreations

mine are on a pipe line, each one has a hose that goes through the wall for the animal. For pigs, I put them kinda low, just for the little ones to get at them, too.


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## goatgirl132

Is there any way you could get 2 sets so the bigger ones could get to them easier?


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## velacreations

yeah, I guess I could set up 2, but wouldn't the big ones be able to reach down to get the lower ones?


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## goatgirl132

Depending on how low they are yes


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## velacreations

yeah, I wouldn't put them too low, maybe a foot or so off the ground, like I do with pigs. And then the babies can get up to it by using the wall or a step or something

I am thinking about getting NDs or pygmies, so eye height would probably be about 2 ft or so. But, I would think they could drink at 1 ft pretty easy, too. I can't change it too easily once it is set up, because the pen walls are concrete


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## xymenah

While goats can use pig nipple waterers they don't get nearly as much as they need. My aunt who owns a large goat dairy (around 2,000 head) tried a pig nipple system but soon realized milk production suffered from it. They are much more efficent with a trough. If you want to make sure they always have fresh water you can use a horse waterer.


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## mjgh06

I agree with xymenah as well. We tried th enipple system for a while and quickly realized they wasted more of the water than they actually drank, so I went back to an automatic waterer bucket.


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## velacreations

it's funny you brought that up, cause I looked online, and several sources said they were more efficient with nipples vs troughs.

I have the nipples already, but I've seen small trough things at the feed store, I guess I could get one.

It was kinda like this: http://www.enasco.com/product/C06414N


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## goatgirl132

I think it might depend on how many you have in a pen. Like if you have a whole herd using one vs if you just have a few like my friend did


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## velacreations

yeah, I would only have 2 or 3, plus their kids.

I will try the nipples and see how they work. If they don't work, then I can change them out to an auto trough thing.


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## goatgirl132

They should be fine


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## emmapal

They do drip a lot during use, they don't drip when the animals aren't drinking, from my experience with poultry nipples, so putting a heavy pan under catches the excess and allows the animal to choose the nipple or the pan according to preference. Of course the pan needs to be cleaned because of droppings. With goats, the bucket is hung higher and therefore a bucket can be placed underneath, again allowing access to both and less problems with droppings than a low pan.


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## Genesis

Did you try them? How did they work?


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## emmapal

We havent had success training either the dog nor the goats to drink from the nipples


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## Genesis

Good to know, thanks!


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## emmapal

If others have suggestions for how to train them to these, I would appreciate it. Open pails/buckets have a lot of drawbacks, and we need an automatic waterer to enable us to travel more. Especially on hot days around here, I sadly sometimes find the buckets empty even when we are in town. We rigged up a big blue water barrel, but none of them could use the nipple.


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## goathiker

When we trained dogs to use crate bottles we used to put a tiny dish of water right beneath the bottle straw. They would lick the straw trying to drink out of the dish. They usually learned pretty quickly that the bottle had more water in it.


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## merlg

I found a study done in Norway where they compared pig nipple waterers vs bowls with dry and lactating goats.

http://www.actavetscand.com/content/53/1/50









Water nipple and water bowl with a container under each water dispenser to collect water wastage.









Water consumption table.

They ran 2 experiments, 1 with dry goats and 1 with lactating goats. Then they split the experiments into 3 periods. Period 1: nipples only. Period 2: water bowl only. Period 3: both (preference test).

Water usage was higher with the nipples than with the water bowls, but that's because the goats wasted 30% (dry goats) and 23% (lactating goats) of the water compared to less than 1% with a water trough. Total water intake was the same on average however. This would mean that milk production should be the same.

During the preference test on average between all groups the water nipples were used more. 3 groups drank mostly from nipples, 2 groups mostly from water bowls, and 1 group was about equal.

Water quality was much better from the nipples than from the water bowls.

I think I'm going to switch to the nipple feeders.


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