A little nervous about the pine shavings

[write2caroline]

I couldn't find pine shavings and I was a little scared to use the "wood shavings" they smelled like cedar. So I used what I had on hand - crushed walnut shells. I use it for my budgies.

Not only did it work great - It was scoopable like cat litter and the chickens did fine with it. They did peck at it but never were sick or had problems - they tried to take dust baths in it once. I kept it about an inch thick. The scooping worked better when poop was still kind of wet. - My new scoop had kind of wide slots and sometimes poop fell back through.

I have more chicks coming and I plan to use it again.
Caroline
Jax FL

 

[JeanR]

When baby chicks go on shavings, it is good to give them Baby Grit (a jar lid of it in the box). They will eat what they need to start the wee gizzard in grinding anything harder than Starter Crumbles, that enters the digestive tract. They are unlikely to "plug up". It lasts for a long time, so by the time they are large enough for regular Grit--and eating scratch and maybe other grains, they will be in good shape.

Good luck, Jean R

 

[cochinbantam-lover]

Quote:
This is the same feeling I got about the so called pine shavings. I was told by my feed mill that they are pine shavings but when i compared to a more expensive bag of pine shavings from my pet store they look quite a bit diff! More of a pale yellow color and the other has some darker chips and all around it looks kinda dull! I put a bag in but put some nice green grassy hay on top cuz I was a little bothered by this! Do they mix the pine with other wood, like cedar maybe!

What do you all think?

 

[cmom]

I use pine shavings. Never had any problems.

 

[gritsar]

Quote:
Walmart sells the large bales of pine shavings in their pet dept. About $6.50 a bale here. They also have the cedar, but they look totally different.