I ordered my watering system from Edstrom who makes the water buddy.
The water buddy has good reviews and uses a similar valve to what I am using but was discontinued some years back so they are getting more expensive and harder to find. The parts I bought from Edstrom are made for a watering system that connects several valves for multiple animals but I but bought the parts I needed for one chinchilla.
I cost me about $12.00 for the parts but shipping was an additional $10.00. I also had some materials on hand except for a couple of bucks worth of hardware I bought at a hardware store.
I'm not sure if what I have is any better but it works. One thing I like about this setup is that it can be easily repaired and repair parts are readily available.
I'm not sure if it's the same valve on the water buddy. I got the one made for guinea pigs but it uses the same concept as the other valves. Instead of a ball that holds the water in by vacuum like in a regular water bottle it is a valve with a stem in it that the animal licks and it opens to dispense. The valve is connected to a flexible tube that connects to a reservoir above it so water is gravity fed.
Some water pressure is required to make it work so the reservoir must be hung at least 6" over the valve and it cannot be allowed to run low on water.
I bought the valve, tubing, mounting bracket, and a couple of standoffs (clips that hold the tube away from the cage) from them. Also I bought the part that screws onto the water reservoir the tubing connects to (a barbed connector) and adapted it for my own reservoir out of a small plastic drink bottle. They sell a reservoir (a big bucket) but it's gigantic and obviously made for people who have a large number of animals hooked up to the system.
I Installed the barbed connector that would screw into a bucket into the lid of the drink container and used an o-ring from a hardware store on the outside to prevent it from leaking around the drilled hole. I should be using teflon tape at the threads too but it has been working fine without it. I also had to buy two nuts that screwed onto the threads of the connector on the either side of the lid to make a seal.
I drilled some small holes in the top of the bottle since it needs to vent and then drilled a larger hole used to fill it with a funnel. I plug that hole between fillings to minimize dust contamination.
So far the system is working far better than the cheap water bottles I've been using although the initial setup was labor intensive. The first day my chinchilla did manage to chew the tubing that was connected at the drinking valve and drained all the water out. To fix this I wrapped a 2" piece of sheet metal around it have not had problems since. I have another piece of sheet metal that I took from a bottle hangar that protects the plastic reservoir and use a couple of water bottle hangars to hold it up. Bailing wire should work just as well if you don't have that on hand.
For those who don't mind rigging something like this up I recommend this over a regular water bottle.
