Wood shavings...

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skrikopanik

skrikopanik

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I love them, the piggies love them... I only just started a shavings trial and my goodness, is it awesome or what?! In Sweden shavings is not a debated bedding at all but as I started researching on UK and American sites I opted not to use it. I've used a paper based kitty litter for their hay bin before but it's so heavy. We don't have megazorb in Sweden and Carefresh is £10 /llittle bag.

What do I look out for? How do I know if the shavings are hurting them?

I only use it in the hay bin so most of the cage is still fleece, but it seems they wee more in the hay bin since I got the woodshavings! Martha likes digging in the shavings, it's really cute!
 
If they're not sleeping in the shavings, then I wouldn't really worry. :)

I'd look out for red or irritated eyes, and breathing problems or sneezing. I'm not sure what else. Some people have said that shavings irritate their piggy's feet, so red or sore feet too I guess. Or maybe even skin problems?

One of my rabbits sneezes, not often, but since I've had her she will sneeze randomly, so I'm going to put lino down in the bunny shed instead, and just have shavings in the litter tray to see if that helps. I find shavings good too, and really cheap if you get the ones for horses. I'm hopefully changing my piggies over to fleece too when they're in the shed if it works out. :)
 
I have come back to using shavings in my hay trays - under a fine layer of cheap hay to sit on; that takes care of any foot problems.

Neither my husband nor I did like the smell of megazorb in the living room and only newspaper under a thick layer of hay the was not absorbent enough and had a tendency to turn into a smelly sludge very quickly. I was losing a lot of hay that way as I had to change twice daily!
 
I wouldn't have worried at all if it wasn't for the strong opinions on UK and American piggy pages... But I guess I'll just use my eyes. I scatter about a teaspoon of whole wheat up there in the mornings and the girls have heaps of fun digging for it. Bo just wonders where they get all the good stuff :))
 
Mine are all on wood shavings. I buy the best I can find, £7.20 for a HUGE bale from the animal feed suppliers. I think mostly it's the dust that people find a problem, but with top quality stuff there is no dust, even at the very bottom of the bale. So buy the best, it's still incredibly cheap, and just see what happens. xx
 
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