I kept meaning to tell Julie Fossa that I had found glass water bottles,
but now I'll tell you all, too.  She and I had been discussing how
plastic leeches into anything it contains, even hard plastic into
something as non-corrosive as water.  You can taste it when you drink
hot coffee in a plastic mug.  If you smell it, you are inhaling it, and
if you taste it you are drinking it.  However, you can't think you are
safe just because it is tasteless and odorless.  And you should never
put plastic in a dishwasher, tupperware included, since it degrades it.
 
(If you are concerned about such matters, try Dr. Doris Rapp's book, Our
Toxic World.  She is a pediatric allergist and a doctor of naturopathic
medicine, and she is spending her elder years trying to get the world to
wake up and see where all these allergies, asthma, etc., are coming from.
She's sort of the Rachel Carson of the 2000's.)
 
Anyway, Julie and I were regretting that there weren't glass water
bottles for the ferrets.  BUT since then I have found great ones in the
Drs Foster & Smith catalogue for birds.  Birds are incredibly sensitive
to many things and have to have containers that can be thoroughly cleaned
(which is impossible with plastic).  They have a really nice heavy glass
water bottle shaped like an old-fashioned quart milk bottle.  I suppose I
could drop it and break it on the ceramic kitchen floor, but it is very
thick and strong.  There is a sturdy metal holder that fastens onto the
cage with a simple mechanism for taking the bottle out of the holder.
the metal spout is shaped just like the 16 oz plastic bottles though of
somewhat heavier stainless steel.  The spout is in a stopper that fits
into the mouth of the bottle.  I've tasted the black rubber stopper, and
I supposed it's plastic.  I can't tell.  But it still has a heck of a lot
less surface area to leech into the ferrets' water than an entire plastic
bottle.  I think it's made by Lixit.
 
The 16 oz bottle is $19.99 and is item # CC-15012  on their website
http://www.drsfosterandsmith.com
 
Blessings,
Judith
--
 
~~~~~ Support Our Shelters ~~~~~
          100 Walsh Road
       Lansdowne, PA 19050
          610-626-6647
 
Helping the Shelters of the Ferret Mailing List
    http://www.SupportOurShelters.org
 
Ask me how you can help a shelter near you.
    <[log in to unmask]>
Tax-Deductible Donations through PayPal to:
<[log in to unmask]>
[Posted in FML issue 4795]