Corn Cob Bedding

[kristyrwilson]

I have been reading previous post and I am now afraid to use the Corn Cob bedding for my Macaw's Playgym. What do you think of the Pine Bedding like they sell at Target or Walmart? I looked on the package and it said it could be used for birds....What do you guys think? Is it safe?? Should I take Captain to the vet and have him checked out, he seems fine but his previous owner has used the corn for years and I have been doing the same since I have had him.

[wildirish]

Pine should be ok, but IO find plain old newspaper to be the easiest and it is much easier to clean up and watch for problems with poops.

Any kind of bedding materials can grow mold spores etc fairly quickly.

[featherfanatics]

I use just plain old newspapers too. Macaws have such a delicate resp. system that I'm leary about corn cob or pine bedding because of the dust.

[fluffy_stitch]

i would recomend paper too,i used to use corn cob bedding for my snakes but it would start to smell mouldy very quickly so i decided stop using it.

[Monica]

From Winged Wisdom Magazine. Bird Cage Liners: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Corn Cobs - Once ingested, corn cobs can remain in the body for years before causing illness or death. Ingested corn cobs absorb moisture and swell, which can cause impaction, bleeding and death. Baby birds can also develop bacteria and yeast infections from the ingested material. When wet or in humid climates, cobs can grow Aspergillus molds which cause a respiratory disease in birds. This disease is difficult to treat and can be fatal. The cobs will also absorb moisture from your bird's droppings, promoting growth of organisms and hiding loose poops. It's a poor material for examining droppings.

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So for your bird's sake, use paper materials to line your bird's cages. NEVER use corn cobs, walnut shells, cedar shavings or kitty litter. Limit pine shavings to nesting material. If a new product comes along, do some research and see how it passes the above criteria before you consider using it.

Paper is not only safer, it is also cheaper. For those of you who don't like the look of newspaper, you can get unprinted newspaper or plain paper in bulk from many sources.

None of us likes the task of changing cage bottoms. And the larger the cage, the more annoying the task. However, cage linings should be changed daily, both for health reasons and to enable you to examine the freshly made poops. You can make this task a bit easier by putting multiple layers of paper in the cage bottom and then removing one or two layers each day. Once all the layers are used up, wash the cage bottom thouroughly before putting in the new paper.

The Avicultural Journal -Volume 15, #5 recently published an article "ORGANIC BEDDING" warning about the dangers of many organic bedding materials. Quoted below are three incidents from the article.

"I had a breeder find her male macaw dead one morning. She had the bird for about a year....... When we opened the bird's body we discovered that there were signs of bleeding into the bowel. The gizzard and proventriculus were both distended with bloody food and small corn cob bedding. There was so much cob in there that there was very little room for food. Like grit, the corn cob bedding was inert and stayed in the gizzard. Unlike grit, the stuff swelled. And this bird had not had access to corn cob bedding for over a year."

"Another notable necropsy was on an Amazon. He too died suddenly. His proventriculus was markedly thickened and his bowel, just past the gizzard, showed gross evidence of bleeding. His gizzard was FULL of walnut shell bedding. He had only had access to the bedding for about two hours a month before death."

"An eight week old Senegal baby started to regurgitate and have variable crop emptying time. The next day the same baby started passing bloody droppings. We started antibiotics and he improved for 24 hours. Then he started to pass walnut shell bedding in his droppings - 3 to 5 pieces per dropping. He had been parent raised for his first sixteen days. His parents were in a cage over a tray of walnut shell bedding that was thought to be out of reach due to a cage bottom grill. That is as close as the young one got to the bedding. After three days of treatment he passed a dropping containing about fifteen pieces of the bedding, and Died."


You might want to consider a vet visit and possibly an X-Ray, too? For the safety of your macaw.

[birdlady49]

Thank you for your post, Monica. Corn corn should be taken off the market. It's the worst thing to use for substrate! If it caused similar problems in humans, you'd better believe it would have been gone looooong ago.

[Macaaaw]

I have seen breeders use walnut hulls. Paper is the solution many people use. Ready available and cheep. My wife backs up to the recycling bin and has not been arrested yet. lol

[Nazir's]

Originally Posted by Monica

Paper is not only safer, it is also cheaper. For those of you who don't like the look of newspaper, you can get unprinted newspaper or plain paper in bulk from many sources

I clean my birds' cage daily. I remove all paper linings and spray it down with a safe disinfectant called Pet Focus. I remove and wash all bowls daily (except the pellet bowl). I wash the pellet bowl every other day as Iris wouldn't finish a bowl of pellets to save his life. Is that common?

Anyways, this routine has become a habit for me and doesn't bother me, no one bit. It's just like I am up early in the a.m. every morning just doing my job.
I never thought to line the cage with several layers of newspaper to make the job easier. I've found it hard to obtain newspapers, even from the larger press companies. I have one local small press company that gives me tons of papers but they go fast because I also use them for my dogs.

Just wondering, could you suggest some places to get unmarked newspapers from, in bulk?

[Monica]

Can't help with the pellets...

As far as unmarked newspapers, they usually come in a roll, and the press companies may be willing to either sell you (usually for a small price) or give you end rolls for free. You might want to consider asking both the larger and smaller press companies if any would be willing to do that.

Also, I've heard that one can use butcher paper (the type that is used to wrap up meat) which may even be sold in craft stores (for kids use).

[Nazir's]

Thank you.
I think that I may find it easier to obtain butcher paper as my local larger press company is not shedding anything, not even for a fee.

I guess I'll just continue to get marked newspapers for free from my local smaller press company.