These are wonderful little critters that we love.  These woozles, slinkies,
ferts...whatever you want to call them, these little bundles of energy,
affection and love have captured most of our hearts so thouroughly that
we post to the FML and discuss the finer points of poopie, all in the name
of their well-being.
 
They seem so small and fragile that we desperately feel that we need to
protect them, and sometimes I think we all think so much of them as members
of the family, so much so that we forget that several thousands of years
ago, there were wild animals.
 
Thousands of years of breeding, domestication, &ct notwithstanding, the
actual biological makeup of the ferret hasn't changed much, just like
modern man isn't too terribly different from cro-magnon man.  Think about
what ferrets migh have eaten and drank in the wild.  The kibble fairy
didn't leave little piles around for them to brunch on, nor were there
pretty sparkling clean water bottles and bowls lying about... they
munched littler critters, and drank water from wild sources.  Wild sources
of water generally do contain slimy bits of algae and other stuff. :)
 
I'm not saying it'd be great for a fert to drink out of a decorative
fountain, on the offchance that it might have been washed with some sort of
chemical in the factory that could leach out into the water (not to mention
that it might be soldered with lead), but if the only thing we're concerned
about here is algae, I sort of doubt it's a problem. :)
 
Tongue firmly in cheek,
 
RhyaKat
 
PS: btw, yes, I boobooed in my last post.  It's canine, not feline,
distemper.  My bad.  You can all quit emailing me now.  <grin>
[Posted in FML issue 3301]