By Bev Reeve

During the time you’ve kept rats, you’ve probably come across numerous discussions about cage litters, and specifically, which type of wood shavings to use.

That main body of the argument centres around the chemicals contained in the wood, called phenols, which are almost like acid to a rat’s lungs and can cause irreversible damage not only to the respiratory tract, but also to the liver.

The majority of wood shavings available in the UK are made from either Pine, Spruce, or a mixture of the two. Pine contains these phenols, and really shouldn’t ever be used, in fact many people prefer to seek out Aspen shavings or chips.

Once you find shavings which are from a type of wood without phenols, that’s all you need worry about, right? Wrong.

The other main factor when selecting a cage litter is the dust content, and it’s this which I’d like to concentrate on in this document.

Take a handful of wood shavings, from any type of wood, and roll them around in your hands. What you’ll eventually be left with is a handful of dust and tiny, almost microscopic splinters. This is the problem with wood shavings.

The tissue within the lungs, and even in the nasal tract is very delicate, when your rat is walking around on the litter, the dust that’s inevitably being kicked into the air is being breathed directly into the lungs. It would be the equivalent of us crawling through it wrist deep on our hands and knees. You can imagine the sneezing and wheezing we’d go through after a few minutes.

The tiny splinters from the wood shaving dust would enter the nose and lungs, and become embedded in the delicate tissues inside. This is what causes the irritation and lung damage. Ever had a splinter in your finger? Even a tiny one is irritating, how about some in your lungs that you can’t cough up?

Of course we can’t eliminate the possibility of the rat breathing in any dust whatsoever, but we can make better choices with the litter we place into the bottom of the cages. There are more and more paper based litters on the market these days, yes, these are still wood, as paper starts life as wood, but during the processes, the splinters should be all but eliminated. Even the dust-extracted litters still have a certain degree of dust in them, but it’s not as sharp, and is known to cause fewer problems amongst various species and size of pets.

The brands I have personally used, and would recommend are:

Bob Martin’s Paper based cat litter, it’s about £1.99 a bag, it is dusty, but nice and soft for feet and the dust can be vacuumed away yourself.

Bio Catolet, recycled paper litter, quite expensive for what it is, less dusty, but quite large hard pellets so not *as* nice for feet.

Carefresh, recycled paper, equally as expensive, but it’s the choice of many rat owners.

Megazorb, wood pulp litter, used in stables, dust extracted, and suitable for use with horses who suffer from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. This is my litter of choice, the sacks are quite cheap at £4.60, but at the moment they only come in 80 litre sacks.

Another brand which I have yet to try, is Easibed. Similar to Megazorb, and not quite as well priced, although they do sell it in smaller bales for use with small animals.

On the whole, Sawdust or wood shavings of any sort just aren’t very nice for our little friends to walk on, if your rats have been experiencing respiratory problems and nothing seems to be working, try changing their litter.