RCReptiles.com

[RonCrawford]

Picked up a few bags of this stuff today, hopefully it works better than regular pine shavings. I'll let ya know!

If anyone has any prior use knowledge, please share it, thanks!

[deborahbroadus]

I don't know, Ron.

Pine is considered bad bedding for rats, and it's toxic for BPs..so what makes this different?

[arlynos]

I use pine bedding for all my animals except for my BP, and they seem to do fine with it. So long as you clean it regularly it should be just fine.

[RonCrawford]

[hhmoore]

[hhmoore]

Oops - just noticed that the name of the product shown is slightly different than what I was looking at...but I suspect that they are essentially the same (how different can 100% pine pellets be??). My initial question was whether Ron's stuff was kiln dried, but since it is mold and bacteria resistant, I'm guessing it is.

[deborahbroadus]

[hhmoore]

I'm not discounting all the warnings, Deb...just saying that I have mixed feelings about them. I personally don't like pine shavings, and haven't used them in many years (I did use them for some time, way back when)...but I suspect that there is a significant difference between shavings and the bark or mulch products I have used regularly. I prefer shredded aspen as it is much finer/softer, and I prefer cypress because it is coarser & I like the look (I sometimes mix pine & cypress mulch)

As far as the links - remind me in a few days, if necessary, lol. I did a quick search, and there were several good explanations right on the first page. No reason anybody that is interested can't do the same.
And you're right, it will be easy to find statements for both sides of the issue...it's all a matter of which ones people choose to believe/reference. I'll say that one should try to consider the age of the information, the subjects, and the qualifications of the author(s).

[hhmoore]

[hhmoore]

One other thing - there may well be "rat specific" issues that I didn't bother to look at before, as the whole grow your own game is new to me (I did it VERY briefly, back around 1991 or so, and never even considered it again until recently)

[hhmoore]

Hey, Ron.
Just wondering what you thought of the stuff (and if your findings matched Deb's, and/or mine)

I didn't end up with that brand, but I'm sure the two are pretty similar. Mine came in a 30 lb bag, and I didn't quite get through all my rodent cages (thankfully, I don't keep a whole lot of them...and half of them are growers). I put a small layer of the pellets in, then put a little coarse aspen on one side for bedding. After two weeks, there really wasn't any significant odor buildup, and it was basically pretty dry...unlike the cages I didn't use it in, which I had already had to change because there was no effective absorbancy & it was starting to smell.
Cleanup was a breeze. Shake the bins a couple of times and dump. The inside of the bins was pretty consistently clean and dry. On the few that did have some bedding stick, a quick wipe with some clean aspen saw it cascading into the garbage bag (again, dry...a pleasant finding).
So positive scores for odor and waste absorption, as well as cleanup.

On the negative side, the stuff I was dragging out of there was HEAVY. I mean, it stands to reason that it would be, as I started out with 30 lbs, + a small amount of aspen, then adding chewed up food powder (damned ASFs!) and absorbed waste, but I didn't even dump the contents of all the cages into that first bag & I thought it was going to tear. (I'd say I did about 2/3 the boxes, before I lifted the bag & decided not to put any more in.)
Also, I use primarily made for the purpose lab boxes, with the angled food bins...and I noticed that it had increased in volume enough that they had burrowed a tunnel to let them pass under that low spot in a few of the cages.
Negative scores for weight, and maybe one for risk due to expansion (could contaminate feed or cause water issues)

I didn't use it tonite, so I'll see what I think the next time I clean. I'm thinking that for 3 seasons (when I can take much of the stuff down back into the woods), I might run with it. It was worth the $4 for the decreased clean up effort (and the extra week between cleanings). If I can find the bigger bags at the other supply place, I'll grab them and give them a whirl.

[Buck_99]

[RonCrawford]

You don't need a lot of this stuff in the cage at all. This I found out the hard way. It's way too easy to add too much of this stuff because the pellets are really small and this might deceive you into thinking that you have to fill up the bottom of the cage and then some - like you do with regular bedding. Nada, not true at all - far from the truth actually.

You only need just a small scoop that barely covers the floor of the cage, oftentimes leaving large bare areas of the cage floor surface exposed. It reminds me of those tiny gel type toys for kids that expand exponentially when you leave it in a bowl of water to soak over night. The pellets break down and expand as well into a material that's very similar to saw dust.

Deb made a good point about the mortality of babies. I've seen a few cages where some of the babies expired but that's to be expected sometimes, even with regular bedding. It's possible that the pellet substrate could be breathed in by babies and expand in their lungs, thus causing suffocation. I can't say for certain one way or the other right now because we've harvested many litters since trying the pellet bedding.

The packaging claims that it's "dust free". This is true "on the way in" but most certainly not the case "on the way out". It looks like saw dust and as hhmoore noted, is quite dense. I haven't noticed any difference in odor with this stuff compared to regular bedding and I'm not prepared to recommend it one way or another right now. I'll have more of an opinion over the course of a few more weeks.

[hhmoore]

Yeah - I figured I was putting in more than I needed, and will use less next time (the 30# bag will cover all my cages that way, too)...but I used a pretty shallow layer & it definitely looked like it needed more. I'll probably experiment a bit next time around - go for a fully covered floor with some of the cages, and a more sparse layer in some others. I think I'll continue to add a bit of aspen for bedding.
Thanks for your input, Ron.