Sawdust/Woodshavings

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Burnt_Toast

Burnt_Toast

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Hi All.

I need a bit of advice on saw dust/woodshavings (or whatever you like to call it). I know that you have to be careful with this as if it isn't the correct type, it can be very harmful to your piggies.

Let me tell you about my setup: I have a 4x7ft C&C cage for my 4 girls. In the main area they are on towel & fleece but they also have a loft area (1x4ft) where their food bowls and water bottles live. It's this loft area that I want to try and put wood shavings so they have somewhere nice and bouncy to chill out. I am planning to do a 50/50 split with megazorb as hay on its own doesn't absorb squat (as they really like to pee up there too).

I guess my question is what kind of wood shavings are safe and what are the brand names you guys would recommend? I live in the UK so I would much appreciate if your suggestions were available here :)

Sorry for the long post mallethead and if there is already a thread with this info, could you please send me the link? Again, I'm sorry about this but I couldn't find a thread out of the 37 pages I looked at in this forum.

Thanks x>>
 
I think it was over 10 years ago that the Cambridge Cavy Trust started advising against wood shavings, I believe both due to some of the chemicals in the wood and because they tend to include small particles of dust that can cause respiratory inflammation.

Since then, I've always had my piggies on just meadow hay, which they eat and snooze in. I tried Carefresh once, but it just got gloopy and smelled alot. I've heard megazorb is good, but I don't know much about it.
 
I use Mendip dust extracted. As long as you're using wood shavings...and not saw dust...and you make sure it's dust extracted, you shouldn't have any problems whatsoever...unless you're guinea's allergic to wood... :))
 
I used to use shavings before I realised how bad they are. Now I use fleece. I would never use shavings. They make guinea pigs itch and sneeze and are so messy. Fleece is nice and cosy for them.
 
I used shavings for years, dust extracted, un-scented and made sure I picked out any sharp/long bits of stray wood and never had any problems.

Sometimes I would mix it with carefresh.

The last 6 months or so I used towels/fleece.

Megazorb is supposed to be very good though.
 
I use dust extracted shavings for all but two of my guinea pigs. Never had a problem with it. I use horse shavings though because I need more of it; but pretty much all shavings you can get at pet shops are dust extracted and safe for most piggies.

Some pigs do have allergies to shavings, so if you want to move to shavings, you need to test them on a small area to see that you don't have itchy/overly sneezy pigs (pigs will sneeze a couple of times if it's new because they have a habit of sticking their noses in it to investigate it!).

That said, I've never come across a pig with allergies to shavings here. But if you're worried about it/end up trying it and you do have an allergy piggy, then megazorb (again an equine bedding) is a great alternative.

:)
 
I use dust extracted wood shavings. My piggies love it as they snuggle down into it and makes nests with the hay.
 
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