Pine Bedding Toxic?

Jill of Beans · Apr 26, 2009

A local animal rescue posted 2 chins on CL this evening, and included in the ad it says:
"The chinchillas of Small Angels would like to remind everyone that cedar bedding and pine bedding are toxic to all animals. Please use Carefresh bedding (first choice) or aspen bedding for your animal friends."

Pine Bedding Toxic??? Can someone set her straight?

Here's their email/contact info and more of the ad: Small Angels rescued Piccolo and Sneakers from an animal shelter. They are a funny pair of two year old male chinchillas. Piccolo is standard gray, and Sneakers is beige. They're outgoing and adventurous and looking for a kind guardian to love them forever.

The adoption fee is $100 for the pair. Please contact Small Angels Rescue at [email protected] for more information. Please include your name and phone number in your message. We respond to all inquires. If you do not receive a response within 48 hours please assume there was a problem with your message and contact us again.

The chinchillas of Small Angels would like to remind everyone that cedar bedding and pine bedding are toxic to all animals. Please use Carefresh bedding (first choice) or aspen bedding for your animal friends.

Thank you for considering adoption, rather than supporting the commercial sale of animals. Have the best day ever!

Essentia · Apr 26, 2009

I mentioned Pine bedding for someone who has rats and I was completely reamed out about how horrible it was and how I am slowly killing my pets. I would like to know where people are getting this information in general.

InkedupTara · Apr 26, 2009

It has to do with the "oils and smells" I forget who I heard going on about it, but that much I remember. ( I am not saying I agree just saying what I had heard)

Peep_erz · Apr 27, 2009

regular pine is bad for small animals but I believe most or all pine bedding is KD Pine. The kd gets rid of the oils.

arf2184 · Apr 27, 2009

Kiln dried pine shavings are fine for chins...they must be kiln dried though. Shavings that aren't kiln dried smell strongly like pine and may be unsafe.

The phenols and aromatic hydrocarbons of untreated pine have been associated to respiratory problems and increased production of hepatic microsomal enzymes (HMEs - stuff the liver produces when processing drugs). Untreated pine has also been linked to altering the sleep time in lab mice. No one has proven (that I could find) that the increase in HMEs or the altered sleep time is doing any harm to the animals.

Heat treatment (kiln drying) eliminates most of the phenols and aromatic hydrocarbons making pine safer. Animals that are prone to respiratory illness (like rats) may still be affected by kiln dried pine and many rat people will not use it and will act like you're insane if you say you use it for chins. Chins are not generally prone to respiratory illness (if they were, dust baths would be a problem) and have done fine on pine shavings for decades.

For chinchillas, in my opinion kd pine is safe and I will continue to use it. Advising that it is unsafe however, is not doing any harm (just spreading not entirely accurate information) and I would leave it alone in this case. They are trying to make sure the future owners take care of their animals. Carefresh and aspen are safe choices too.

tunes · Apr 27, 2009

Fine for chins, not good for rats. Chins have been kept on shavings for more years than most of us have even known what a chin was.

Rats, unfortunately, are very prone to respiratory issues, and any type of dusty, wood bedding is not good for them.

Anne-Lise · Apr 27, 2009

That is the reason I heard too Tunes, small animals like rats and mice always have their noce in the bedding and as it is dusty, it can cause respiratory problems. That lady from the rescue must be making assumptions from that theory.

kendra · Apr 27, 2009

Not all pine bedding is kiln dried, I ran across this at one point-had a bag of bedding given to me that was not KD, so maybe the person was meaning that the non-kiln dried was bad or just saying pine to keep any confusion over kd or non kd (sorry if I'm not making any sense)

Raela · Apr 27, 2009

We just got a bag of kiln dried pine for our chickens and were thinking about using it also for the chins, but when we first open the bag the smell of pine is super strong (it fades after a couple days), but I was wondering if it was still safe for the chins?

arf2184 · Apr 27, 2009

Are you sure it's kiln dried? Kiln dried pine still smells like pine, but I wouldn't call it super strong. If the pine is in a plastic bag, the smell does seem to concentrate a bit so when you first open it, it can smell stronger. After it breathes for a few days, it doesn't smell as much.

Using non-kiln dried pine for a short period will probably not hurt the chins, but its not something you want to use on a regular basis.

Raela · Apr 29, 2009

arf2184 said:
Are you sure it's kiln dried? Kiln dried pine still smells like pine, but I wouldn't call it super strong. If the pine is in a plastic bag, the smell does seem to concentrate a bit so when you first open it, it can smell stronger. After it breathes for a few days, it doesn't smell as much.

Using non-kiln dried pine for a short period will probably not hurt the chins, but its not something you want to use on a regular basis.

Well I thought for sure it said kiln dried, but now I can't find it anywhere on the bag, so I emailed the company to see if they are kiln dried. Hopefully I will hear back soon. I will switch back to their old pine shavings if these are not kd. This is only the first time I have used these particular shavings in their cage, so I am not too worried about it. They have great ventilation in their cage and they do not nibble at their shavings.

tunes · Apr 29, 2009

Most bagged shavings are kiln dried, even if they don't say it on the wrapper. In a pinch I get mine from Wal-Mart (when my regular supplier is out) and they don't say KD on the bag, but they are.

As a side note, Devil's Tower pine shavings are very aromatic when you open the bag, but within a day of them being out it dies down. It actually makes the barn smell SO good, I almost wish it would hang around a bit longer.

feistychins · Apr 29, 2009

We get our kiln dried pine shavings from a local feed store in paper bag bales. Depending on the time of year and the source of the shavings, some bags are perfect small curls and every once in a while we get a bag that is very fine. We hate getting those, but it gets us through.

We have two chins that pine makes them sneeze, so they get Carefresh. I tried using Aspen but I thought it was horrible at controlling urine smell. I'm talking hours after we cleaned it would smell by the couple of cages we put it in.

With all of our chins, using the kiln dried pine has never caused any respiratory problems.

Cuddlebug · Apr 29, 2009

I use aspen and have never had a problem with urine smell. I used to use Carefresh, but that stuff is just sooooo expensive.

Raela · Apr 30, 2009

So I got an email back from the company saying:

Raela
You might check to see if Pine (softwood) shavings will work for Chinchillas.
bg

Wow it is nice that he is concerned about the safety of my chins, but how hard would it have been to actually answer my question, which was simply " is your pine kd or not?"

So now I have to email them yet again just to get a simple answer about their pine shavings.

By the way they are called BC Premium Wood Shavings if anyone on here has used them and knows if they are kd or not. They do smell wonderful, but strong!

angela · Jun 15, 2009

Sun Seed brand safe?

My roommate picked up a bag of Sun Seed "Sunthing Special" Northern White Pine bedding. Has anyone ever tried this before? It doesn't say kiln dried specifically, just "........cleaned several times removing dust and fines...." It just doesn't look as clean and soft as what we normally use. The pieces are a bit bigger and it has very small pieces of bark in it. I'm probably being over paranoid as usual, but thought I would ask if anyone has had experience with it before I use it.

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