Shouldn't pine be dangerous, too?

[BekahBear]

i use aspen in my brooder and with any of my animals that live in cages. i have kept many reptiles and rodents in the past so i was always warned against ceder and pine and always have bags of aspn bedding. the horses get pine shavings but they are outside in the open so it can easily air out. i have never personally had any problems with pine bedding but the only time i use it is with really good ventilation. my guess would be yes, aspen is a better choice of bedding for young and fragile chicks if you can easily get ahold of it(not everywhere carries it though and its usually more expensive than pine).

 

[Little_Peeper]

I had the same problem when I was reading up on chicks. I don't believe in using tree shavings fir the same reason, so my thoughts on pine for chicks are negative. From what I've heard, its either the oils from the chips or the urine from the rodents, but it's bad for their lungs. Chicks have lungs too, and they're babies, so I figure a definite no-no. But, that's my opinion on pine. I don't know much about aspen, so I cant help you there, but, I was reading about a breeder who uses some rubber shelf liner she gets from wal-mart. She says it works well for chicks because they can easily get their grip, and its cheap! Just search "shelf liner" to see what I'm talking about. Hope that helped

.

 

[Keenonf]

I don't use either. I use shredded paper in my brooder. They seem to enjoy it and I have an almost unlimited supply, plus its free!

 

[Sillystunt]

i have had NO problems with the hundreds of chicks i have had on Pine!!! The first couple of days i use a a paper towel floor until they find and reconize there food. then i put pine into the brooder box.

My adults used hay and leaves in their coop~

 

[cedar post]

Quote:
Pine needles are one of the best it cuts down on mites and lice and other critters, pine needles are used by serious pigeon keepers to keep their birds healthy. Pine shaveings in my op is not the best choice. I lost some of my better birds from picking it up swallowing it and clogs their crops and gizzards then they die a slow death. Then you stand there and wonder what they died from. I went to wheat straw no problems. Mike

 

[CountryMom]

My coops are bedded with pine shavings. And I have used pine shavings and pellet pine bedding for years with our guinea pig breedings with absolutely no problems from the bedding. I would say that 99% of the breeders I know also use it without problems. I prefer the pine pellet bedding simply because it does hold off the odor and keeps my long haired guinea pigs tangle free of bedding.

 

[Akane]

The pine pellets may cost more than hardwood shavings but they will last much longer. Their absorbency means everything will turn to fluffy sawdust and still be dry long after you would have changed soaked hardwood shavings multiple times. My brooders with pine pellets rarely need changed before I move the chicks to a larger brooder. So in the end it does come out to cost about the same and less work. You just have more money up front and the weight of the pellet bags. That was an issue when I had a 9' x 3' guinea pig cage set on a stand 4' up. There was more than 300lbs of pine pellets there. Luckily I build my cages so they could easily hold the weight of a person. I used them in all my guinea pig cages, horse stalls, and in my coops under a layer of spruce or pine shavings. They actually save costs and work in a lot of cases. The stalls end up having a lot less bedding removed because shavings don't go through the tines of a manure fork nearly as well as the sawdust from pellets and most of the pellets themselves will go through if you do it right. When we bed a stall in shavings we go through 4 or 5 times as many bags per stall every month than if we use pellets.

 

[CrazyFowlFreak]

Quote:
Pine needles are one of the best it cuts down on mites and lice and other critters, pine needles are used by serious pigeon keepers to keep their birds healthy. Pine shaveings in my op is not the best choice. I lost some of my better birds from picking it up swallowing it and clogs their crops and gizzards then they die a slow death. Then you stand there and wonder what they died from. I went to wheat straw no problems. Mike

Great! Thank you for the advice

 

[Serrin]

I've used kiln dried pine shavings in the coop for years. It's well ventilated and I've never had so much as a "dust sneeze" from any of my girls. In my brooder I use that rubberized shelf liner. I usually have three or four cut to fit the bottom of the brooder cage for their first 5 weeks.

When it gets dirty (usually every day depending on how many chicks I have in there) I change it. I roll out a fresh section of the shelf liner as I'm rolling up the soiled one. Chickie's learn real quick how to stay out of the way of this operation and in about 45 seconds flat, the brooder is nice and spanking clean! Put the food and water dishes back in and everyone is happy! AND they have all undergone the least amount of stress I can cause them.

The great thing about the rubberized shelf liner is that it can be tossed in the wash and used over and over again. Just be sure to buy the higher grade of shelf liner. The lesser stuff tends to fall apart in the wash. Oh, and be sure to hose out the soiled liner before you toss it in the wash.

Or you can do like I often do and just hose it out and then wash it by hand with a good antibacterial soap, rinse and hang to dry.

To be honest, I've never seen any of these so called clinical studies of the adverse effects of pine shavings on small animals. For my money, I'd want to know who funded the research. Always follow the money. Therein lies the motivation. And the truth!

 

[Akane]

A lot of the studies were done to rule out problems with other studies so there's little negative motivation there. It's hard to test the effects of a medication or drug when another chemical is screwing up the results. That's how they found the damage that phenols can do to things like the liver even when not causing respiratory problems.