# Aspen Chips



## Kage Davies

I'm looking to change the bedding I use for the mousies before I start my little breeding project. I use Biocat but it doesn't seem very comfy to walk on, and it smells a bit odd .

Anyway, the local petstore sells Aspen chips by the bag for their reptiles, and I was wondering if they'd be alright for the mice? I thought I read somewhere than Aspen was fine, but now I can't find the information anywhere. Anyone used it/know what its like?


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## Jack Garcia

I use primarily aspen. I like it a lot. Mine is shredded very fine but you can get it in all sorts of shapes and sizes.


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## JustMouse

aspen bedding, unfortunately CAN cause some severe respiratory problems in rodents the size of rats or smaller. Some people swear by them, but they can be dangerous! I use a soft granule style bedding (by the brand Kaytee). it's lavender scented and has never caused problems. Plus, if you put soft cotton in with it, the mice can make a very soft strong bedding with the 2 combined. it's pretty cool


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## Jack Garcia

JustMouse said:


> aspen bedding, unfortunately CAN cause some severe respiratory problems in rodents the size of rats or smaller. Some people swear by them, but they can be dangerous! I use a soft granule style bedding (by the brand Kaytee). it's lavender scented and has never caused problems. Plus, if you put soft cotton in with it, the mice can make a very soft strong bedding with the 2 combined. it's pretty cool


Aspen causes no problems in healthy animals. I can send you a list of (literally) dozens of people who use aspen without problems, if you want. Let me know.

BTW, Kaytee uses high doses of ethoxyquin in many of its products, even some bedding (where is not required to be listed).


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## JustMouse

i actually know of personal friends' rats who have gotten respiratory infections and died because of aspen bedding. but whatever, maybe they were just unlucky. i don't trust it


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## Jack Garcia

Aspen is perfectly safe for small animals. It is a hardwood and has no phenols.

Pine and cedar are unsafe for small animals. They are softwoods and do emit phenols.


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## The Village Mousery

JustMouse said:


> i actually know of personal friends' rats who have gotten respiratory infections and died because of aspen bedding. but whatever, maybe they were just unlucky. i don't trust it


two words come to mind "Prove it"

To start with can you prove it was the bedding that caused them to die? no could of been anything sometimes stress sometimes just underlining problems unless the rat in this case could talk you'd never know. 
My mice are housed on Aspen and have not had any breathing problems from it, I think this is another case of what you the owner prefers alot like the Corn diet some think its bad others have had no trouble with it. In my opinion aspen cause's no problems i'm with jack on this


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## bethmccallister

I use Aspen, which is perfectly safe if you change the bedding every 3, 4 days at the most. The Aspen is absorbant and retains Ammonia and other oders caused by mice deficating. I could see if someone didn't clean it often that it may cause respiratory issues and bacterial infections...it was perhaps the ammonia that gave that Aspen a bad rap.


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## Jack Garcia

Artuntaure said:


> two words come to mind "Prove it"


Hehe...I was trying to be nice. 



bethmccallister said:


> I use Aspen, which is perfectly safe if you change the bedding every 3, 4 days at the most. The Aspen is absorbant and retains Ammonia and other oders caused by mice deficating. I could see if someone didn't clean it often that it may cause respiratory issues and bacterial infections...it was perhaps the ammonia that gave that Aspen a bad rap.


It depends on how populated the cages are. One thing you can do to help the ammonia (with ANY bedding) is to sprinkle baking soda (AKA sodium bicarbonate or Arm n' Hammer) on the bottom of the cage before you put the bedding in. It absorbs the ammonia and gives you a couple extra days between cleanings, again, dependent upon how populated the cage is. That's what I do.


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## bethmccallister

Thanks Jack, I was wondering if that was safe! I only keep 2 mice to a 10 gallon (or a doe and her litter), or I keep 5 mice in a 30 gallon but I think there is room for more in there.


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## Jack Garcia

You're very welcome! 

It's the same principle of cat litter. It uses baking soda as an ingredient to eliminate the smell, too. But actual, clumping cat litter is dangerous for mice because they'll eat it and get impacted, whereas plain baking soda (the main ingredient) is fine to use.


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## The Village Mousery

hehe jack i was being nice. sorry if it came across as agresive wasnt my intension


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## Jack Garcia

I always have that problem! :lol:


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## Kage Davies

lol XD. So its pretty much the same as everything else. Some yes, some no.


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## The Village Mousery

haha yep theres no proof that it causes harm so its fine lol


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## Erica08

I love aspen mainly because I can use with everyone from my chickens to my rabbits and mice and have never had a problem with it. It also doesn't have an over powering scent like some other bedding's can I can go anywhere from 5-7 days without changing it depending on how many mice are in the cage. I use a brand that has rather mixed sizes no huge chunks but there are some bigger ones and my mice love to run around with these in their mouths its funny to watch, it's this size that they seem to like to use in their nest as well.


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## Jack Garcia

That's a good point. From chickens to snakes to cockroaches, aspen is safe for everybody.


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## moustress

After trying other brands that were a bit less pricey, I have decided to stick with Kaytee Aspen. The last off brand stuff I tried had way too much in the way of dust and fine particles. I had a number of eye, ear and respiratory problems ;using the stuff. Aspen is good in general...just be aware that they are not all the same. I used to use corn cob bedding, and I really liked it except the way it smelled if it got really wet, like when meeces pile up bedding under the water bottle until the water all wicks into the bedding. Stench city! Pheh! I think it's called fermentation.

Mills Fleet Farm here in the US has the best price on Kaytee Aspen that I've found anywhere.


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## JustMouse

hey, no need to be hostile about the "proving it" crap. i was just answering the question from my personal viewpoint. i'm sure the aspen bedding caused the respiratory infection...as soon as the bedding was not used anymore, the afflicted rats (that didn't die), got well. i'm fairly certain that it was the bedding that was the issue, although perhaps my friend just had rats that were allergic? sorry to cause an uproar, but like i said, i dont trust aspen bedding! this is a forum, after all; it's open to all responses


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## Bella

Hardwoods are perfectly safe for mice and other rodents. Unfortunately, not enough people know just how dangerous woods like pine and cedar are and they are still the number one sellers in pet stores.

But Aspen is perfectly fine. I use it for all of my little critters. 

As for the rats that got sick and died - I would be more willing to believe that they were allergic to it (rare, I'm sure, but not impossible) and that the respiratory infection was actually a secondary reaction.


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## The Village Mousery

i wasnt being hostile as i stated above i'm not that sort of person, i ment it in a scientific way if you get my meaning.


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## Jack Garcia

JustMouse said:


> i'm sure the aspen bedding caused the respiratory infection.


How, though? Correlation does not imply causation.


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## JustMouse

it can if removing the variable in question stops the infection! it doesn't matter, you guys do whatever, aspen's fine, whatever else is fine; just love your mousies and theyll be fine


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## Wight Isle Stud

Can I add to this discussion, I was a witness to the second generation of the great mouse fanciers in England, if you like I was a young man (very) when they were old, they themselves were very young men when Walter Maxey was around. (I am the Holder of Walter Maxeys original scrapbook ). All the great fanciers I looked up to used pine shavings and sawdust for decades, as did their peers before them. Snuffles was an occasioal problem. About once a month, a Fancier with a stud of average 400 mice would get a snuffler which would instantly be culled. Before I make my decision to use hem core when I re start in the fancy, I want a true answer from my future friends on here, do you all get snufflers say once a month even though you dont use Pine products ? Its important to have a true answer as if not, we may never get to the bottom of the snuffling problem, as it may not be pine shavings/sawdust doing it, etc .


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## thekylie

I have been using kiln dried pine for about 2 months as an experiment. /is shot.
Apparently as long as the oil is baked out it's ok to use. I haven't had a problem with it other than with the mice I have that are also allergic to aspen. I keep those on a paper litter. I have not noticed one bit of difference in pine and aspen to my mice. Granted I only have about 20 and I haven't been using it long term, but I wouldn't be afraid to use the kiln dried pine. 
I DO notice the pine I buy is less dusty than the aspen, and that the aspen works a little better to absorb odor because the pine shavings are so thin and light.

I just bought aspen again this last time, and I'm going to try pure shredded paper soon too. I'm trying to see what the best bedding for me.

Second edit:

I should also add the disclaimer that until a week ago I had pet only mice. I'm switching back to aspen after this little bit of pine is used because that's what their original breeder had them on, and there's no sense messing with a good thing.


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## Jack Garcia

I never have mice with respiratory problems. I've selected very strongly against it (euthanizing all sick animals) to the point where my mice just don't get sick anymore. I keep them on aspen.

I keep enrofloxacin on hand just in case, but I end up using it for healing cuts and scrapes instead of URIs, because my mice just don't get that kind of sickness anymore.

Just for reference, here are some articles about the toxicity of pine and cedar:

http://www.trifl.org/cedar.shtml
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/a ... /3792/1057
http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/guineapi ... avings.htm
http://www.ratfanclub.org/litters.html
http://www.afrma.org/rminfo2a.htm


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## Rhasputin

Jack where do you get your enrofloxacin?


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## Oakelm

I'll be back. said:


> Can I add to this discussion, I was a witness to the second generation of the great mouse fanciers in England, if you like I was a young man (very) when they were old, they themselves were very young men when Walter Maxey was around. (I am the Holder of Walter Maxeys original scrapbook ). All the great fanciers I looked up to used pine shavings and sawdust for decades, as did their peers before them. Snuffles was an occasioal problem. About once a month, a Fancier with a stud of average 400 mice would get a snuffler which would instantly be culled. Before I make my decision to use hem core when I re start in the fancy, I want a true answer from my future friends on here, do you all get snufflers say once a month even though you dont use Pine products ? Its important to have a true answer as if not, we may never get to the bottom of the snuffling problem, as it may not be pine shavings/sawdust doing it, etc .


To be honest I don't believe the RI issues to be caused by a particular product. I personally use large flake shavings, cheap and normally easy to get hold of.
I find it to be not very dusty and don't get snufflers in any regular occurrance, if fact every time I have had one I can attribute it to something and it's never the pine shavings. My local stockist ran out of big flake for a fair few weeks this year forcing me to try other things, I tried aubiose, something that looked like care fresh paper mulch bedding and smaller shavings. And simply from this change it a well ventilated shed in spring weather I had several snufflers, all of course culled out. I actually put it down to general dustiness. I don't have asthma but it runs in the family so I do consider myself borderline. I noticed in everything other than pine shavings I had a wheeze after cleaning out and that is with a dust mask. The smaller pine shavings I could feel the dust on me but didn't cause me issues otherwise. However if I was to recommend anything it would be the big flake shavings, lovely product to work with. I will never buy anything else again unless someone can prove to me 100% that it is causing serious harm to either me or my mice.


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## Wight Isle Stud

Thanks everyone, I dont think its the pine sawdust/shavings that cause snuffles, it is probably dustiness of whatever bedding is used. Thats my opinion, I dont think pine etc. is poisonus to our mice.


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## Tara80

As far as I am concerned, there is not enough standing research on pine to provide applicable insight on whether it can be considered 'toxic' for the respiratory system yet. We KNOW cedar is, but pine is a different story (keep in mind that it is a relative of cedar).

As a herp keeper, I have been following the pine toxicity subject for a long while due to the fact that reptiles have an extremely sensitive respiratory system (along with sensitive skin). Many large and reputable reptile breeders have stated that they've used pine for a long time and have found that: The pine toxin (abietic acid) is only released upon wetting of the bedding and that heat treatment (as noted by someone earlier) seems to minimize if not eradicate toxin release all together.

Personally, I use both aspen and pine and have not witnessed any problems with either to date. Obviously (as many have stated), aspen does not contain nor release any toxins and is considered safe with the exceptions of allergic reactions and contamination (most likely fungal) which can be caused by poor packing and drying by the vendor.

Here is a note on pine:

In pine (family Pinaceae), the primary irritant identified is abietic acid, sometimes called sylvic acid. Pine products also include pine resin, also known as rosin or colophony, which is known to pool players and mountain climbers. Pine resin is also used in adhesives, paints and varnishes, inks and in sizing for paper, paperboard and fabrics (Sadhra 1994). Abietic acid itself elicits relatively weak allergic responses, however, a number of compounds formed by air oxidation of abietic acid are potent contact allergens (Hausen 1989, Karlberg 1988).


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## Jack Garcia

Mice wet their bedding a lot more than snakes.


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## Tara80

True! But believe it or not, my snakes are worse (more messy). They tend to:
1) feel too warm and want to cool off 
2) feel too dry and want some moisture 
3) are curious and want to explore or 
4) just plain feel the need to poop in their water
Ultimately, they end up either knocking over or partially spilling the waters. I think, sometimes, they just like to make the largest mess they can because they are bored lol (it sure feels that way sometimes).
Because of it, sometimes I end up changing snake bedding daily.
I do change the mouse bedding at least every 2-3 days (they are spoiled).
I have had 1 of my snakes have an allergic reaction to the pine skin wise. She broke out in lesions pretty quickly and I had to change her back to aspen asap. Have never witnessed any problems with aspen AT ALL other than it tends to emit ammonia odor (when peed on) more than other options (pine, Carefresh, etc).


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## CatWoman

Jack Garcia said:


> That's a good point. From chickens to snakes to cockroaches, aspen is safe for everybody.


I thought that too, but then I discovered one of my cats is allergic to it. Of course, that doesn't mean everyone in the world should avoid aspen bedding if they have cats. It simply means I have a one in a million case.

Everything has to be considered in context, otherwise the "answers" don't mean anything.


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