Wood shavings alternative? Please help...

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dabou

mommy of Kahlua and Pedro
Joined
Feb 9, 2009
Messages
87
Location
Quebec city
It's not urgent, but I've emptied both my chinchillas cages from their wood shaving bedding and... I didn't have any clean left... And nothing is open at this time of the day...
Anyone know if they'd be okay simply sitting on their plastic cage bottom? Anything I could use as an alternative that I could find easily?
 
First of all can they get to the corners of the plastic bottom? If so you shouldn't have the plastic uncovered even with shavings you should look into tiles or something to line the cage with... If there is no way they can get to the plastic they should be fine for a night or two on just the cage bottom.
 
check on em now and then and use some paper towels or something to clean up anything you find, until you able to get more.
 
Thanks to you both, they can't get to the plastic corners, and someone told me to put a towel in the bottom, which I did (I tried the paper towels but they kept eating it and I thought it'd be better something they wouldn't eat...)
Got shavings the next day, as soon as I woke up :)

When Kahlua got to the bottom of his cage and stopped. He looked down, looked at me XD
 
i didnt mean to put paper towel down on the tray. I meant to check on them now and then, and spot clean. If you see a puddle, get a paper towel and wipe it up. - Over time the acidity in urine can eat away at trays. So its a good idea to clean it up as soon as you see it.
 
In case you run out again, you don't want to put a regular towel down. If your chins decided they needed to eat it, the threads could do severe damage to their insides. You MIGHT try fleece, but again you want to watch to make sure your chins don't decide they NEED to eat it. It's nowhere near as bad as regular fabric, but if they eat a lot it can cause problems.

By the way, you may consider buying shavings in bulk. It's much cheaper per pound, and you have that much longer between shopping trips. :)
 
i didnt mean to put paper towel down on the tray. I meant to check on them now and then, and spot clean. If you see a puddle, get a paper towel and wipe it up. - Over time the acidity in urine can eat away at trays. So its a good idea to clean it up as soon as you see it.

Oh oops... I misunderstood... English isn't my first language ^_^;
But I've done that when I saw urine on the tray and not on the towel, cleaning it with paper towel :)
 
In case you run out again, you don't want to put a regular towel down. If your chins decided they needed to eat it, the threads could do severe damage to their insides. You MIGHT try fleece, but again you want to watch to make sure your chins don't decide they NEED to eat it. It's nowhere near as bad as regular fabric, but if they eat a lot it can cause problems.

By the way, you may consider buying shavings in bulk. It's much cheaper per pound, and you have that much longer between shopping trips. :)

I'll watch out for them if ever I have to do that again, but they haven't eaten nothing so they're good for now :)
And also, it's the first time I've had to do that for the whole 9 years I've had my oldest chin ^_^; so I shouldn't do it again XD

And yeah I buy the biggest format from petstores (Aspen shavings) but you're right, I should try to see if I can't buy in bulk. Some research for tonight! Thanks for the advice! :)
 
If you're looking for bulk shavings you can check a farm supply store. They usually have huge bags, for less money than a petstores bag, marked for horse bedding just stay away from cedar.
 
Pet picks from walmart is cheap and works well. Get some fleece sized to the cage bottom and have it on hand in case it happens again, just lay it in the bottom of the cage, chins can't pick it apart like they can towels, but they can chew it so watch them.
 
Do I need to check for anything in particular for the way the wood shaving are? Like "dust free" or something? I guess I should go for Aspen first, and pine if they don't have aspen?

I'll check to have some fleece cut the right size and on hand, sure is a good idea!
 
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