Aquarius products/ Bottle babies rapidly delivered the bottle stand and
bottles:
http://www.bottlebabies.com/
in good condition and it was very easy to assemble.

The charge card option the website worked smoothly and gave a protected
URL designation, and my email receipt arrived within 48 hours.

I SHOULD have gotten the large stand but got two of the smallest
stands. The large stand has adjustable heights. The small stand is
too high for ferrets but read on for how I solved that problem.

The stand itself is marvelous and stayed upright even with three
ferrets trying to topple it.

The bottles leaked like sieves, though. Sadly, that is not an
exaggeration. Okay, I had a fix for that.

Luckily, I already had some extra long bottle nozzles with much tighter
fitting gaskets. These were originally sold for people to turn their
own bottles into water bottles, but i can't recall where I bought them
years ago. By using those in the bottles and using the screw on portion
of the cap which came with the bottles the leaking was totally
controlled and the height became perfect.

Something I will be changing. I plan to look in pet stores for bottles
with the same back projection that are in a different plastic. These
bottles are in the flexible and clear plastic that poses problems
leaking pseudoestrogens so might present a health risk for ferrets.
Hopefully there are cloudy plastic (safe) bottles with such
projections. I think that a glass bottle would be too heavy unless it
was much smaller.

The release for the bottle is very easy to use. Here is view elsewhere
of what I think is the same lock:
http://www.unbeatablesale.com/lnli352.html
Be sure to copy the full URL or it will not work!

This and some glass bottles below are both from:
http://www.thefind.com/pets/browse-lixit-bird-water-bottle

Two of our ferrets have already decided that they prefer the Bottle
Babies water stand approach to the water bowl for at least some of
their drinking in their room. Sometimes they drink together from the
nozzle.

I plan to ask Barbara at Aquarius Products/Bottle Babies to put more
detailed pictures of the largest water bottle stand and how the height
adjustment works for that as well as how the largest bottle attaches to
see if it might be more amenable to other styles of bottles. I could
imagine a pole with multiple holes and a curved surround clamp, perhaps
with a secondary part to screw in any of the lower holes -- a rectangle
slotted to slip in the spout and provide support, as providing such
such options unless what I imagine in my head would not work in reality
(entirely possible).

All in all, I think this has promise for ferrets but there are some
changes I'd really like, such as the height problem and a change in the
type of plastic for the bottles.

I have found something else that I want to try as well:
<http://www.dog-bows.com/cgi-bin/shop.cgi?database=misc&action=view_product&productID=H555>
(Be sure to copy in the entire URL.)

Scroll to just a bit above halfway down the page to see DOUBLE NOZZLES
that you can put on your own bottle to permit the same bottle to
provide water both inside and outside the cage.

BUT that sight is horribly constructed and I can't find where a person
is supposed to click to get the double nozzle, so I will have to
contact them to ask.

This is another product (Glass bottle this time) which might be able to
be mounted inside a cage to provide water to those outside it, with a
neighbor of the same type mounted elsewhere facing in:
<http://www.overstock.com/3905987/product.html?cid=55004>
Be sure to copy the full URLs or they will not work!

These are both from:
http://www.thefind.com/pets/browse-lixit-bird-water-bottle

I have no experience with that seller nor the seller of the double  
nozzle.

Sukie (not a vet)

Recommended ferret health links:
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
http://www.miamiferret.org/
http://www.ferrethealth.msu.edu/
http://www.ferretcongress.org/
http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml
http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html

[Posted in FML 6315]