Nesting/Bedding Material

[Jan]

I have been having a very hard time with accepting the way pine shavings are in the past 2 or 3 years. Either way too course or way to fine and what is worse is it is so, so saw dusty like. With Birds having sensitive respiratory systems then why would we subject our breeders and babies to this stuff? I hate the Kaytee stuff so I broke down and bought one of their most smallest packages and yep as I figured nothing but dust! Kaytee brand for one is horrible with too large of wood chips through out plus wasy too dusty - I swear to God, I am going to take a photo of this junk soon just to show if none of you do not realize what I am talking about.

I had bought one of the larger bags of some brand called Mallard Creek and is like 3.1 cubic foot in the bag... they say "98% dust free" HA ... more like 98% dust!!! It feels too course and yet it is dusty. It's worthless and nearly the entire bag sits there and will not be used.

I have severe Asthma as it is so I have to be careful for myself too but heck the birds need something that is not full of dust and splinters so what I have been doing this year for the babies is shredding up my paper that would normally go into the trash or newspaper or my old, old receipts I have been needing to go through to shread to toss out so I use it for the babies instead!

One year I used the CareFresh bedding but that stuff gets expensive when needing to use a lot of it, I spent one year over $200 just in it alone.

Now I need to find a really good bedding material for breeders and babies for next year, if I should be breeding them.

So what do you all use and do for your breeders and babies?

[Greycloud]

Yeah, I found that when I was a breeder the pine was very dusty. Definite NO to corn cob. I started using carefresh and just liked it so much I stuck with it. If the babies pooed I could remove clumps throughout the day. I felt it was worth it. I have asthma too. I no longer breed due to having crohns and I really mis handfeeding those little buggers.

[xafsmom]

Sometimes I have to use the sucky pine shavings if I didn't order enough bedding in time.. but normally I use Cage'n'Bird's "paper" bedding. It's exceptional!

Edit: Lemme go take a picture for you! Brb! LOL

[xafsmom]

cage'n bird bedding

[Jan]

Thank you Tina for posting that. That is pretty much similiar to what I am doing by shredding up paper. My vet said it was fine to use that even if it has ink from the printing.

Anyway, I took some photos as well and I show the shredded paper I do then I show some Kaytee which shows one with just running my hand through it a time or two and how the dust collects on my hand... now I sure do not want that junk in my lungs or in my babies lungs either. I show where it has fairly large splinter of wood, this is through out it as well.

[chinniechantel]

Have you tried pine bedding from a feed store? I buy it in bulk and I find that it is MUCH less dusty and the shavings are more consistent. You can choose between different size shavings as well. It is very cheap and better quality than Kaytee. I hate Kaytee anything.

How about yesterdays news? I use that with my hedgehogs and it works great. It is like little pellets.

[Jan]

Yes, infact that is where I had bought that Mallard Creek brand before was at a feed store, which was pure junk and I had looked on their website seeing that they had their url on the bag of stuff. There are differnet qualities of how it is sold. So much of this type of shavings can be for larger animals but in any case the way it is so dusty is not good on any living being's lungs while on this earth!

I'm glad I am not the first to say "I hate anything Kaytee" - I could go on a rant about their baby bird formula but I won't...

[xafsmom]

Oh, no.. I will. I will yes I will. Kaytee HFF is the worst stuff! They don't monitor the levels of things inside of it. I had two babies blown out due to iron toxicity FROM that formula. They settled with me. I've had friends have similar.

Bad weight gain, bad crop motility. Bad bad bad.

Bad.

[milkevi]

Originally Posted by xafsmom

Oh, no.. I will. I will yes I will. Kaytee HFF is the worst stuff! They don't monitor the levels of things inside of it. I had two babies blown out due to iron toxicity FROM that formula. They settled with me. I've had friends have similar.

Bad weight gain, bad crop motility. Bad bad bad.

Bad.

Tell us how you really feel

[Jan]

We can go from bedding to formula, that is fine with me ... well I use to buy the Kaytee Formula like up until about 4 years ago but prior to that I was having big time syringe clogging mania. I use the 20cc and 35cc syringes. My sister was having the same exact problem, so I contact Kaytee to pitch my gripe. They tell me to send them a sample of the formula I have so both my sister and I did out of each of our bags. The end results for both of us was this from Kaytee:

We did not know how to mix our formula, nor did we do the right temps and we used faulty syringes and I had even sent them a brand new in the package syringe of the type I use ...

Yes, that is exactly what they told us but they proceeded to send us each a 5 pound bag of new formula and coupons to buy more!!!! Now, if that was not a slap in the face a hundred times over - we both was furious! Considering we both have bought over 80 pounds of formula between the two of us for that year, we were not happy campers! The funny thing was for both me and my sister was both those bags they sent us, we had nothing but a continued syringe clogging frustrated time. So from there on I now use Zupreem's Hand feed formula.