to use as bedding in the cage?
thanks.
Answers:
indeed it is, although it tends to be more fatal in smaller rodents like hamsters. The reason its had so many bad reports is the natural oils in cedar gives off a poisionous toxin to animals when they have peed on it. The dust level also effects their lungs and delicate eyes.
A fantastic bedding on the market that can be used for your rabbit, and other small animals is carefresh. Its a non toxic, pulped, recycled paper and is extemley cosy for them. Its strange to look at to begin with but your rabbit will like it. I swapped from pine to carefresh after 14 months and my hamster loves it.
Yes, for certain rabbit breeds who like to claw and bite anything within reach, the shavings can cause digestion problems, which can ultimately end in killing the rabbit.
I'm not sure what the best is to use, howveer, since I have never owned a rabbit.
Im not sure if it is unhealthy for them, but I really dont think it is the best thing out there. Im not sure about rabbits, but with my mice, guinea pigs and rats they get the dust from it in their noses and sneeze like crazy. I switched them all to the Carefresh bedding. Its like chewed up thick paper. They seem to like it.
Cedar is the worst, it contains natural oils that are irritating. Pine is not the best but it is better than cedar. You can chose a hull litter, or nothing. Depends on the rabbit you can litter box train your bunny, but make sure he doesn't eat the litter.
Yes, I never use that for my pets.
I think there's another bedding called aspen shavings or something like that.
Pine and cedar shavings are said to cause liver problems in rodents due to the oils. In fact, the studies that report activation of certain liver enzymes are medical studies designed to minimize unwanted activation of enzymes for specific pharmaceutical studies using rats and mice. Most researchers use pine bedding for rodents EXCEPT when conducting these specific studies. There is no evidence that pine or cedar bedding cause health problems in rodents.
pine and cedar give off phenols which irritate the lungs and eyes of animals
they also absorb and then release, as the animal moves, the ammonia from the animals urine, causing further damage to lungs and eyes as well as their feet
remember bunnies have no tears to wash their eyes with[ which is why they use them for testing shampoo and other irritants grrr :( ]
why not use straw and hay for bedding and extra roughage? shredded paper[no ink is toxic these days its all vegetable based, but it can make light coloured animals look a bit grubby] you can just about guarantee no identity theft once an animal has used it lol ;)
carefresh as mentioned above is excellent and safe for small animals but there has been cases where rabbts have chewed and ingested it, so i personally would be very wary [ you obviously have the right to think differently] also you would need an awful lot for bunny hutch and it is expensive
if you really, really must use shavings then i believe i read aspen is a safer option than any others
YES! If you look it up on the internet, there is a lot of info. It can cause respiratory problems I remember this from when I had guinea pigs 10 years ago. Well, think about it. Wouls YOU like to be on all fours sniffing cedar all day and night?
If you look up nontoxic bedding, you will probably find something.
Cedar is definately bad for all small animals. The aromatic oils can cause respiratoy problems. Pine is ok IF IT IS KILN DRIED. If it isn't, it has the same problem as cedar.
I use aspen chips for my guinea pigs. They have no odor or oils, so are safer. I pay between 9-12 dollars for a HUGE bag. I happen to hate carefresh and other like it. I find them too dusty and causes breathing problems for one of my guys.
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