is sepiolita safe for quails to use as dust baths??

[Khadijah]

Hi my name is Khadijah and I had a few quail chicks and a hamster. I use chinchilla sand for my hamster and I read the ingredients for it, it said it was made from “sepiolita”. I wanted to use this for my quail chicks to have a dust bath in but I don’t know if “sepiolita” is safe to use for quails. Can someone help me

 

[sylviethecochin]

Everything I'm reading says it's non-toxic and safe. There's a variety that contains asbestos, but it's very rare, and they wouldn't be selling it for chinchilla dust baths anyway.

 

[Khadijah]

Thank you so so much

 

[Fishkeeper]

It should work, sure. But there's no reason you can't just use regular dirt. In fact, it would help them build their immune systems if you just give them a heap of dusty dirt to bathe in.

 

[Khadijah]

The dirt/soil in my front and back garden has fertiliser, would that affect them?

 

[sylviethecochin]

The dirt/soil in my front and back garden has fertiliser, would that affect them?

It might depend on the fertiliser. Probably not; I don't keep mine out of the vegetable garden until harvest, and they seem fine.

 

[Khadijah]

Oh thank you

 

[almanquail]

I give finished compost from my wormbin to my quail, they eat the critters in it and use it as dust bath as it drys up.