Substrate Alternatives: Straw/Hay?

I'm wondering if anybody has experience using hay/straw as a rodent rack substrate instead of aspen/pine/shredded paper?

I've recently developed an allergy to pine, and so this is no longer an option for any rat racks or my chicken coop :( I didn't know what was causing me to be itchy the last few weeks, but every time I got home I'd start gettign mildly itchy just from being in the house. The rats are out in the garage, with the pine. I didn't realize until a couple days ago, and especially last night, how bad it actually is. I scooped some pine with both of my bare hands, and within minutes my arms were red, itchy with bumps, and today I'm having trouble breathing due to my throat and sinuses being all messed up. It isn't something I can just take a zyrtec for when I go to clean, it's affecting me just when I get into the house :(

For the amount of pine we go through a month, the equivalent in aspen in this area would be a considerable price increase. The bags/bales are MUCH smaller and twice as much as the huge bales of pine from the feed store.

I am not a huge fan of shredded paper because 1) I don't want to buy a paper shredder and 2) I don't like how frequently it needs to be changed to keep the smell tolerable. We are busy people and can only clean the rats once a week.

SO.. I've been wondering about straw/hay. The stuff is ridiculously cheap at the feed store and on craigslist - so does anybody have personal experience or know how this might work as substrate? I know different hay will work differently, as some is dryer/firmer than others. Is there a particular kind that absorbs odor and holds up the best?

I don't have any experience using it. But I don't imagine any straw or hay to be very absorbent. I thought I just recently saw a q regarding the same thing though.


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Homegrownscales

I don't have any experience using it. But I don't imagine any straw or hay to be very absorbent. I thought I just recently saw a q regarding the same thing though.


Check out what's new on my website... www.Homegrownscales.com

---

x2 on the non absorbent part

But I dont see why you couldnt use it. I would say they may even nibble and eat the hay a little. Could work out just fine. If its readily available to you then just give it a try.

X3 on it being non absorbent. Thats why hay is use in oil spills. The hay soaks up the oil but NOT the water. I think it has to do with waters ability to hydrogen bond and oils inability to. But im not positove, i just know they do use it for that.
So unless your ratties piss oil i would say hay is a no go lol.

Have you looked into sani chips? Im pretty sure theyre cheaper than shredded aspen and theyre made of aspen too, not pine so your allergies would be fine. They clump up like cat litter. Arent rats smart and go to the bathroom in the same corner or am i thinking something else? About how much pine do you go through a week/month/year or whatever?

I've got a friend who keeps her tortoises on hay when they're indoors for the winter, her herp room smells like a barn in the winter

I used to keep foaling mares on straw instead of normal shavings for horses - I will tell you one thing - there is no absorbency there for water based liquids.

I use shredded paper for my rodents, it works great. I change them out once a week for the rats and once every 4 days for the mice.

You'll pay an arm and a leg for hay, depending on your area of the country. In drought conditions, bales around me (Midwest) can hit $8 and $9 dollars a bale for Timothy or alfalfa. Not sure what you're wanting but there is a difference between the quality of hay that's fed to cattle versus horses versus rabbits, etc. and the prices correspond accordingly. Straw is wheat stalks, generally speaking and won't absorb much of anything either. Straw is cheap but if you're going through twice or three times as much per cleaning, it might not be cost-effective. Don't mean to be a downer, just offering my two cents. Sorry to hear about your allergy, that sounds like a literal and figurative pain both. Good luck and hope you find a solution.

Thanks for all the help, guys :) no sanichips big enough here.. only a few liter bags for $10. can get Timothy on CL for $5/bale this time of year. In Washington and have no clue about the availability in the winter...will have to ask the locals. Hadn't thought of that!

I had used straw many years ago once. It made a horrible bedding and began to smell pretty quickly. I have guinea pigs who eat hay. They make a mess so there is always hay on the ground. It needs to be cleaned up often or it stinks too. It doesn't absorb at all. Have you looked into paper pellets for bedding. There are also pine pellets, I don't know if they would bother you like the pine shaving do.

Yesterday's News. We use that for our pet chinchilla. It's made of recycled newspaper. In bulk it might be expensive but its pretty cheap and if not, shredded paper. You can buy it cheap or make your own.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by QueenOfKing

Yesterday's News. We use that for our pet chinchilla. It's made of recycled newspaper. In bulk it might be expensive but its pretty cheap and if not, shredded paper. You can buy it cheap or make your own.

---

I've used this stuff before on small scale. The largest bag I can get is around 30lbs and is $20 per bag. We go through around 100lbs of pine a month, and spend less than $20 per month, and the fluffy pine goes a lot further than the dense pellets. Yesterday's news is great stuff, but when using it as substrate for 28 kitty-litter pan sized tubs, and 6 2'x3' cement mixing tubs, it adds up very quickly :)

Been trying out a mixture of the remainder of our pine and straw - the straw seems to aerate the pine and create structure for nest building, without compacting, or allowing babies to get buried and lost.

Will probably just suck it up and buy aspen once the pine runs out. It's a race of whether we run out of zyrtec or pine first. Hah.