From:
Dr. Bruce Williams
Date: 2001-02-26 13:27:00 UTC
Subject: Re: Fish tanks & soap
Here's a good one. It is not a good idea to let your ferret drink
out of the fish tank. Fish can transmit a parasite called Giardia to
your ferret, which has been incriminated as a cause of chronic
diarrhea. While you can identify Giardia in ferrets with perfectly
normal stools, and it has not been definitively identified in a
pathogen in ferrets, I would not purposely expose my ferret to it,
and I would take precautions to keep the ferret away from the fish
tank.
I have seen two cases of ferrets with Giardia who also drank out of
the fish tank. Both had diarrhea, which resolved following
appropriate Giardia treatment.
Soap? May cause diarrhea, but most hand soaps are generally not
considered to be toxic in ferrets, and ferrets do love it. My mother
used to wash my mouth out with it when I was a kid (frequently) and
it didn't appear to hurt me (or work, for that matter, !@#$%^&!)
With kindest regards,
Bruce H. Williams, DVM
Join the Ferret Health List at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Ferret-
Health-list
--- In Ferret-Health-list@y..., "Kris/Ski" <Ski2135@a...> wrote:
> My ferrets drink out of my 10 gallon fish tank, I have heard the
fish
> water can be very bad for them, is this true?
>
> Mousie my 3 year old ferret also likes soap, (Dove). I keep the
soap
> up on a shelf that she can not get to, but if she gets a chance she
> will lick it. Obviously this is bad, but I am wondering why she
does
> this, is it because she may be lacking some other food source or
> something?
> Kris & the Kids