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]