I am currently looking into the pros and cons of wood shavings as a bedding for small animals, particularly the smaller rodents such as hamsters and mice.
We all know that dusty wood shaving or sawdust can be harmful to our pets, causing respiratory problems and allergies and are best avoided.
How about dust extracted wood shavings though? Can these ever be totally dust free and safe or would people recommend the alternative bedding materials such as the paper based Care Fresh, megazorb or cat litter types, although, these are usually more expensive.
I would be interested in everyone's opinions.

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John
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I use megazorb for the rats , mice,hamster,etc you have to be careful with what you use as some types of woodshavings can cause breathing problems.

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Wood-shavings for rats should be used very sparingly because they suffer greatly with respiratory diseases. With hamsters, rats, gerbils and alike, vegetable parchment is the best thing to use, its like shredding paper and theres also some very soft bedding which name escapes me but looks like candy floss! That along with ripped up cardboard boxes like you have your tea bags in, cereal packets in, erm.. even the middle of loo rolls/kitchen rolls. All good for little critters!

With my bigger animals like guinea-pigs and rabbit, they've always had wood-shavings and never had any problems with it. My mum's partner is a carpenter and every so often gives me a great big black sack full of fresh, untreated wood-shavings so I get it free

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In a word, no.

I take in unwanted animals here and I've seen a direct correlation between animals kept on softwood beddings (woodshavings, sawdust or wood based cat litter) and animals which have health problems.

The dust is one issue. "Dust" which comes off of something like woodshavings will basically be tiny little splinters of wood which are extremely irritating to the lungs and eyes.

The other issue though are the phenols, a chemical released by softwoods. There have been studies which show that these damage the liver. I believe a rabbit rescue found that rabbits kept on woodshavings had raised liver enzymes which then returned to normal when the bedding was changed.

A lot of people say they have used them for years and not had a problem. But liver disease can be largely symptomless or look a lot like old age. Unless you have had a post mortem carried out, you can't be sure what your animal died of and whether liver damaged caused by their bedding was a factor.

My view is that there are plenty of other safer beddings available and they're often cheaper than woodshavings. So why take the risk?

Great reply sproggie14. Any evidence that I have found in support of woodshavings has been of the "I use it and haven't seen any problems" anecdotal type, or the source has had a strong conflict of interest as it's been from suppliers or manufacturers of wood shaving products.

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If you view this thread, even if you don't reply, could I ask that you vote please, as It would be helpful to get some meaningful numbers and it does only involve ticking a box

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Use Carefresh Bedding. It is a littlemore expensive but is made with pet allergies in mind, is anti bacterial and dust free, absorbs the wet without leaving any smell and is digestable if the pet eats it.

Shavings can be sharp and dusty,carry bacteria as alot of the time it comes off farms. and rats tend to have allergies to it.

If your pet isn't eating, your pet isn't grooming, your pet is making a mess and its not fully formed or coloured the way it should, was wheezing and coughing.. then I'd worry because they are sure signs of the animal being ill.

I've only ever had trouble with one pet of mine having a "bad" reaction to wood-shavings. Out of 14 pets I've had since I was 9, it can't be that bad no matter what is said about it Though you shouldn't mix it up with sawdust! Sawdust is evil stuff and shouldn't be sold

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Shavings carry dust in them - sawdust!
Even the vacume extracted ones still contain an amount of dust - sawdust

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I wouldn't say there was any scientific proof that wood-shavings is bad for ALL small animals. My girlfriend has a rat who is almost 3 yrs old and has had a couple of abscesses in the past but they've cleared up. He's a really old boy and it shows, but he's healthy still. Now his brother, he died the end of last yr. He literally bled to death on my girlfriend's lap. He had obviously gotten an infection in his lungs from the wood-shavings because for a while beforehand he had been sniffling and sneezing a lot and then came the blood from his nose and one thing lead to another and in the end.. well... it basically was not a pretty sight as you can imagine...

I think if you have a well ventilated cage, which all mine have, you shouldn't have a problem with dust getting in their lungs and harming them. It can probably do just as much damage to us too so we're all at risk slightly.

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