I uses Pet Cetra pine wood cat litter, not the dagerous pine i hope. It has no smell, it was recomended so.

this and carefresh is all that around where i live sell. And carefresh - im alergic  to it.

whats aspen?? ive heard bout it what is it? i have really bad alergies to any shavings so. plus whaty im using was recomened. But i'll look into it ASAP, thanks guys

It doesn't matter if it was recommended if an uneducated person recommended it to you. Pine can KILL YOUR RATS, and I'm sure you don't want to be the cause of your pets' deaths. Use old cotton t-shirts, if you're allergic to those, use whatever you wear. I'm allergic to my rats' bedding, but since it's the best stuff I can get for them, I use it. Bedding isn't 100% about what YOU like, it's about what works for both your rats and you, so in your case, use t-shirts, since it works for both of you. I use aspen even though I'm slightly allergic to it because I have 9 cages and I admit I'm lazy. Actually, I'm trying to do a year's worth of school work in less than two months so I can graduate earlier, so I really don't have too much time, and then I waste time here, so I cannot really change my bedding every 2 days, which is what I do with Carefresh because I have a sensitive nose and I just think it reeks after two days (and no, it's not because I have too many per cage, because the aspen works fine.) Anyways, sorry about that little rant, but seriously, you have to think about the rats too, so pine is a terrible idea and can kill them prematurely. Same with cedar. If the pine isn't a problem for you, I don't see why aspen would be (unless of course if you have a specific allergy to aspen!) Anyways, get them off that crap as soon as possible. The longer you have them on it, the more dangerous it becomes (because it can build up in the ratties' systems.)

I see your post. You're using PINE bedding. Pine and cedar can kill your rat babies. Use old t-shirts or go to the thrift shop and buy a couple of old shirts for bedding for them. As people have said in your other thread, it doesn't matter what it smells like, it's still pine, which is dangerous to your ratties' health. I'm not trying to be rude, but you're either going to have to find something else (by contacting your local pet supply shops and asking if they'll ship some aspen or Yesterday's News in), use old, but soft clothing or you'll have to deal with either your allergies or the early death of your pets. It stinks that rats are fragile, but you have to take the good with the bad, and you have to do what you can to prolong their lives and make them happy, which means ditching that crappy pine bedding. Please do NOT listen to petshop people when they try to give you poor advice. ALWAYS check up on what they tell you before you act on their information. There are very few petshops that actually give out proper information. Some petshops are just plain ignorant and truely don't realise that they're killing people's pets with such poor informations, and some just don't give a hoot, since they see rats as disposable pets/food for other animals. You can not trust petshops. Please, do a little bit of research on pine and cedar beddings for rats, you'll come up with a lot of information on it. I recommend that anyone that's considering a pet RESEARCHES it first before they even think of bringing it home, it saves a lot of trouble and a lot of wasted money on worthless crap like pine bedding.

I had a pet store tell my husband that the only thing I should use in my rat's cage was pine shavings...so.... just because someone recommends it, does not mean it's something you should use.  (I took that pet store owner many print-outs that explained why pine was bad, hopefully she read them all.)


If you are allergic to everything else, do what others have said, go with fabric.  It's easy to pick-up/clean when it gets smelly and there is no dust.  One level of my rats cage I have to change the fabric daily, One level I can go the whole week, most I do every other day (I have lots of little levels, my cage is like a aquarium topper).  Save all the dirty fabric until the end of the week and wash it in one big load.

Simple!

i use fleece and old t-shirts as floor material at the moment

I use aspen.

I also use Cell Sorb Plus. I hated Aspen and Carefresh always seemed to harbor mites and I had no place to freeze it before use. Cell Sorb seems to handle the boy odor a little better.

     Has anybody tried "Critter Comfort All Pet Bedding"?  According to the bag it is an all natural citrus peel mixture, it is %100 safe for all pets except those requiring a moist habitat, and it is flushable and bio degradable. 

    They sell it at my Petsmart and I just decided to try it yesterday. I put it in my girls litterbox to see what happened and so far so good, no sneezing or anything, it doesn't seem very dusty at all and it's only been in there one day but I think the odor control will be pretty good.

     Anybody have any thoughts on this, think it's ok to use for them (there's no pine or cedar, just citrusy stuff)?.... I googled it to try and find more info but all I could find was the website where they sell it...can't remember what it was now.

I use aspen shavings with newspaper under it to absorb pee alittle better.  I also just ordered some harlan shredded aspen.

I also was under the impression there is NO safe pine litter because the phenols are a quality of the wood and cannot be removed.  Feel free to yell at me if I'm wrong.     I don't like the way carefresh smells when it gets wet.   

Bad Rattitude Rattery

Wonderful, Perfection!  Your rats will thank you!

How do I keep the towels down....ha! 

I pull the fabric thru the holes in the cage mesh and put a clip on the outside that is big enough that it will not pull back thru.  I use metal binder clips, the kind you use instead of paper clips for thicker piles of paper.

This works great UNTIL the ratties chew the clip off from the inside.   

I have also found that putting things (litter box, hut, etc.) in the corners of the cage helps slow down the binder clip chewing off process.