pine bedding for mice

[latesam]

i keep my mice in pine bedding substrate, do you think that would be a problem with my BP when it eats? It doesn't seem to have any adverse affect, but i think i heard that pine is bad for the snake bc of oils or some such thing. just thought i'd get a second opinion.

[SatanicIntention]

I would get them off of it. It will lead to unhealthy mice that you are feeding to your snake, and the snake will get unhealthy as well. The oils in the pine shavings cause kidney and lung damage, and you won't see adverse side effects until it is too late. Mice and rats don't usually show signs they are sick until they are very close to death. It's their survival instinct.


Pine should only be used for horses, who are 6ft off of the ground, and only have to touch it when they are in the stall. Mice are about 1/2" away from it, and have to touch it all of the time. I would get some aspen, as it is just as cheap as the pine, and won't cause any adverse reactions.

[RobertCoombs]

Im going to pull an Adam here.. Does any one have or can any one produce some kind of scientific Data to back this whole pine shaving issue up? I have kept rats and mice on pine bedding for 20 years now with no ill effects to be seen BTW I would love to find aspen in bulk in my area but its just something that cant be found around here I know of several "big breeders" that also use pine on their rodent colonys with no ill effects.... so Proof?

[Adam_Wysocki]

I LOVE IT!!! .... Question everything!

ROCK ON Robert!

-adam

[SatanicIntention]

I did a little experiment at my school for a few weeks with some mice we had. One group was kept in a 10 gallon tank with a screen lid on pine shavings, fed lab blocks, given a water bottle, the norm. The other group was kept on aspen with everything else the same.

I noticed that the mice kept on pine sneezed more often and had rougher hair coats than the ones kept on aspen. They were all checked for parasites, had pinworms, were treated and checked again. We have gerbils, hamsters and mice at school right now, and they are all kept on pine for ecnomical reasons(the reason being-it's free from the horse barn ). From what I've seen, they have rough hair coats, aren't as fat as they were, and sneeze more than usual. Previously, we had a mouse(normal, white, lab mouse) and he had a severe allergic reaction to the pine and only got better when we put him on the aspen or another bedding. He lost patches of hair, had profuse eye secretions, increased porphyrin secretions from the nose, lost weight, and sneezed alot more often.

I really want to do another test on another group of mice, but need to breed some more of the boogers I will ask my rat people what their views on pine are and the adverse effects on the rodents. I'll let ya'll know what I find out. This is fun

[RobertCoombs]

I was actually looking for actuall studies ,papers etc.. I assume it was confirmed also through a vet that the "allergic" reaction was indeed an allergic reaction to pine and not to the meds given for the pin worms or maybe some sort of vitamin or mineral defeciency?
Do you have weights of the animals before and after ? comparing weights of the two sets?

[SatanicIntention]

No, sorry, I didn't think about getting weights on them. Even if I had wanted to, we don't have a scale small enough to weigh such tiny things But if it was a vitamin/mineral deficiency, then the other mice would have had the same reaction since they were all fed the same Mazuri Rodent Chow lab blocks. It was given free choice and there was always plenty of food.

I also don't think that it was an allergic reaction to the dewormer for the pinworms. They had been sneezing and were generally poor looking. About a week before I put them on the aspen, the one mouse had started getting scabs around his neck and sides. I don't know if it was from his nails being too long or if it was a Staph. infection. I can't test him now since he has since been euthanized. I wish I had time to do another study on the effects of pine on them, but I don't think it is going to happen.

[latesam]

I bought the pine bedding at the pet store, it was in the area for small animals...aka mice.
I've got a HUGE bag of it, so i'm going to finish usung it, and since the little buggers only live about a week at most, i'm going to guess whatever negative effects the pine bedding might have is a moot point.

[dystopia]

Here's a link to the National Institute of Health's guidelines on Lab animals.

http://oacu.od.nih.gov/regs/guide/guide3.htm

It doesn't mention pine specifically and from some other sources I've read, its nowhere near as harmful as cedar, but in the guidelines, it says that by heating the substrate, it reduces the amount of harmful hydrocarbons. So, if anyone is at all concerned, they could try this.

Sorry its slightly offtopic, but i found it interesting and thought others might as well.

Jeremy

P.S.
Here's the links to Melissa Kaplan's site where she wrote a couple articles on pine. I've heard mixed opinions about her intentions, so take it for what its worth to you.

http://www.anapsid.org/cedar.html
http://www.anapsid.org/cedar2.html