Any clue if walnuts are toxic to quail?

[fishforbrains]

I usually use a brand of pine shavings (intended to be used as cat litter) to bed my quail on (smells good, they seem to enjoy digging around in it) and the feed store stopped carrying it and replaced it with something made out of crushed walnut shells of all weird things. I'm quite hesitant to use it. I can go back to using sand but it was so dusty.

 

[azygous]

Probably not, but there's another problem you should be aware of. If you plan to dispose of the soiled walnut shell bedding material in your compost to use on garden beds, the high concentration of jugalone in the shells will poison most plants you may attempt to grow in this compost.

People here on BYC have been raising chickens under black walnut trees for decades with no problems to their flocks. The only animal that is susceptible to the jugalone toxin appear to be horses for some reason.

 

[True Patriot]

Crushed walnut shell is a fairly common product with uses from polishing metals and removing rust to keeping baseball fields dry. I've never seen it as a litter product though. I don't think it would be harmful, the shell is rather inert, the oils that cause allergies is found in the meat. Can you list a product name or pic of the bag? An alternate product would be the pellet stall bedding sold for horses. It's basically compressed sawdust, when you get it damp it expands. It's more inexpensive than shavings where I live.

$5.99 for 40 lbs. I've seen posts from people using with chickens. Not sure about quail, the only ingredient is pine.