Everyone in the house, including the dogs and cat, is on tap water. We live in a rural area, so our tap water is pretty clean. My mother even had it tested (a long time ago) because she did daycare for a while when I was little. I can't even imagine giving animals anything other than tap water, but then again, I've never lived in a place where we had to have town water. I guess it wouldn't cost too much to give a gerbil bottled water, but it sure would get expensive if you had larger animals. For instance, we have three dogs and a cat, so they go through about three large bowls of water every day.
I guess if I lived in an area where I had to buy water or filter it, I would do the same for my animals. It would just about kill me to spend the money, but it doesn't seem very fair to give them anything different than I would be drinking.
(08-15-2013, 10:40 AM)Coricopat Wrote: I've seen some debate about this, since boiling will kill parasites but won't remove minerals, toxins, or debris. Don't quote me on that. I just figure if the people who have lived here for generations refuse to touch the tap water, I'd better follow their lead. I know my father has bought water testing strips (not entirely sure what they test for), and the tap water has always come up in the far-red danger zone. Scary!
Boiling will not remove allot of toxins, the point of boiling is to kill any live bacteria, viruses or fungi. Certain chemicals can be boiled off, those that are natural gasses at room temperature, like chlorine.
I normally give my dog tap water as it would cost way to much to do bottled water or any more and as i am not on a water bill it costs me absolutely nothing to give my dog tons of water each day he probably goes through around 4 bowls of water each day which is a lot but no need to worry when you have unlimited supply
