Chinchillas > South East USA

Anyone interested in paper bedding??

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chinclub:
I am sick off wood shavings.  Carefresh bedding is just too costly.  I found a place that sells recycled paper as bedding. They are in Colorodo.  I called them and there are no distributors in the south east.  I can become a distributor but I need to buy in serious bulk!!  I can store it and have about a 6 month supply or I was hoping other people might want to make the switch too and would be interested in buying some bags once its here.  Depending on how much I buy at once the price per bag would be between $8-$9.  But it expands to 12 cubic feet compared to wood chips that are about 9 cubic feet.  She sent me a sample bag that I am going to use today and I will let you know if it truly goes farther.  I am still working out the details and trying to decide what to do but I would love to here if anyone else is interested. It would help make my decision.

jmdebb:
i'm curious to know your comments on it?

chinclub:
Well, the bags are the same size as the large wood shavings bag.  When I opened it it looked like newspaper that had gone through a paper shredder.  It was speckles of all sorts of colors like confetti.  What I loved was how soft it was! After grabbing handfuls of wood for hours a day this was delightful.   It took longer to fill the pans because the paper is so compressed I had to rub handfuls of it between my palms to fluff it up.  But is did fluff up even more than wood. 

I use ranch run cages and I have 5 runs to one bank.  (So one bank has 15 pans total.)  A bag of aspen will do 2 full banks if I keep the shavings shallow in the pan.  I did 2 full banks yesterday before I ran out of time and I was only about 1/2 way through the first bag.

Pros so far:

*Super Soft
*I'll only need half the bags so I save money
*No wood smell
*No dust

Possible cons:

*It is really shredded small easy to throw out (but they did that with everything)
*A bit longer to fluff when filing pans
*I wonder if it will flatten and compact over the week more than pine did.
  My Aspen is so finely shredded that it does this which just means that the
  poop can't fall to the bottom and the cage looks dirtier.

I did wonder about the inks coming off on the chinchillas.  I know it is vegetable based ink so its non toxic but I wonder if any will
come off on the animals.  I am going to still use wood shavings with the ones going to show this year until I am sure it won't be a problem.  Nothing came off on hands while I was filling pans and I did drop some in the sink and get it wet and no color came off so I think it will be fine.

I am off to the chin building so I'll let you know how it held up the first night.

jmdebb:
yah thats true, with them goign pee on it, the ink might come off.. yah good idea, keep using the other stuff.. i can see it now, people will be going up to your chins to read the latest news. rofl

chinclub:
So far so good.  My daughter thinks they are recycled phone books and I think she may be right.  I have wet the shavings and can't make them bleed.  So far I am in love!!

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