Can filtered water cause diarrhea?

[Joy]

I own 2 young ferrets, and i am a new ferret owner. Previously i was using regular tap water to give to my 2 boys. But I bought a pur water filter recently and after a couple of days one of my ferrets has very runny poop and the other has very soft poop. I was wondering if the difference in the water could be the cause? Should i stop using filtered water and go back to regular tap water? I gave both ferrets a little bit of pumpkin to help firm up their poops, but I am concerned. Its not normal for them to get diarrhea like this.

[abbeytheferret6]

I have never heard of that before. I give my ferrets filtered water by way of fridge.I have to run a few gallons thru when we change the filter because the charcoal I guess in new one turns water blackish. To me it would be better to give the filtered ---but someone might know something more about it.

[bandit]

I use reverse osmosis water, which takes out the fluoride from it. I also have a chloramine filter to remove that as well. I have given this to my ferrets for years with no trouble with diarrhea.
Can you contact your local water supplier to find out which chemicals may be in your water?
Chloramine has recently been added to a lot of water municipalities, and it's a known diarrhea cause. Regular filters will not take out this chemical. Only a chloramine filter will.
Chloramine is toxic to fish, people with kidney disease.

www.vce.org/chloraminesymptoms.html

www.chloramine.org/chloraminefacts.htm

[raynebc]

I get gallons of filtered water from the grocery store, because our tap water isn't particularly pure tasting. I don't think the water has ever affected my ferrets stool anywhere near as much as the food has.

[Charlie]

Has anything else changed in their diet or environment?

[Heather]

What are they eating?
ciao