You wrote...

>Hey, it took a little while but I finally got it...Grapefruit (from
>Gaped Fert). Let me congratulate you on that name.  It's very clever
>and I like it, cause it made me think a little bit.

Given the nature of my post, I think Gaped Fert pulls ahead in that
category. :-)

>On another note, I am conducting an exam of water consumption...

FWIW, I use fairly tall, heavy, playproof crocks for water as he tends
to try to chew on water bottle tips even fat ones. Apart from ferretone
and various treats, his diet consists of dry kibble. The type and often
mix has changed from time to time but has been limited to the Marshall,
8in1, and Totally Ferret lines. I'm currently feeding him Totally
Ferret Older with some Marshall Senior mixed in. Crap... that reminds
me... I forgot to have the vet weigh him.

My guy frequently chews over the water crock, dropping crumbs in the
water. He doesn't purposefully deposit food in the water. I have at
times moistened some of the dry kibble and given it to him. Sometimes
he ate all of that before going back to the dry, sometimes he left
some of that for he preferred the dry.

I keep my place between 73 F and 77 F during the summer... it is
usually 75 F. It can get pretty humid around here in the summer, but
the heavy use of air conditioning tempers that a bit. Off the top of
my head I'd say that it is normally around 45% in here, but can get as
high as 57% on a very rainy day. During the winter I use a humidifer
and try to keep it somewhere above 30%.

A few weeks ago I measured how much water it took to top off his crock
each day, and found that to be roughly one measured cup of water on
each day I did it. Since then I have noticed fewer big pees, so water
consumption may have dropped down a bit. I should probably check that
again.

I would expect a dry diet to lead to heavier consumption of water from
the water bowl. As for total water consumption, I presume that would
depend on how wet the food is.

>I sincerely hope that Graped Fert will be OK after his surgery and
>blood test.

Thanks. As I said in an earlier post (which I forgot to line wrap...
sorry if it makes it through the list like that) he seems to be doing
fine. Although he is rather frustrated that he can't escape whatever is
following him around and biting him on the foot. He looks around and
backs up and sort of hops away from imaginary bugs |-) No chewing or
pawing at the staples thank goodness.

[Posted in FML 5652]