Shredded cardboard bedding

[Tweety]

I went to the local feed store to buy pine bedding for our baby chicks and saw that they are selling shredded cardboard bedding for small animals like guinea pigs, rats, and rabbits. I got to thinking we could put our cardboard boxes through our garden shredder and make our own. Does anybody know if shredded cardboard can be used as bedding for baby chicks?

 

[allen wranch]

I would be worried about the toxicity of any ink on the carboard and possible mold. Also, a garden shredder would not give you the same cosistancy as the commercial shredded bedding.

 

[jessied1227]

I don't know what kind of chipper/shredder you guys have, but we use folded cardboard panels to push smaller pieces of wood into our shredder, because ours won't handle it for some reason, and we don't want our hands ANYWHERE near the intake. This is a huge Troy Built gas-powered shredder that can chip a 6 inch log. (It scares the heck outta me!) For some reason the cardboard bogs it out and then we have to clean it.

Just an FYI - it a pain in the butt to clean cardboard out of your chipper, lol. Hubby thought he could shred boxes for compost. No such luck.

Jess

 

[kstaven]

cardboard will hole the moisture from chicks. It will mold and stink ten times faster than shavings will.

 

[greginshasta]

We have a 8HP Troy Bilt and I have run cardboard and oak leaves through it rather successfully. Both are turned into the consistency of tobacco shreds one sees in cigarettes. It really tears things up small and I didn't find any cleaning problems.

I believe the ink problem can be resolved by limiting this to boxes that don't have printing - just brown boxes of which I have plenty of. And at the pace that Tweety (aka Sunny) replaces the bedding, I doubt there will be moisture issues. Talk about babying these little chirpers!

But if the concensus is that this is a bad idea, I'll just send her to the feed store for the big bale of pine chips.