rats and newspaper?

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I think some people have said before that the ink on newspaper could potentially be harmful to them if ingested? I'm not sure though. However, I will say that I bedded my rats down on paper (large sheets of packing paper, no ink), and I didn't find it as satisfactory as fleece. It's not as soft and snuggly, and it's easily shredded and made a mess of. Yeah, you don't have to do laundry, but scraping pee-cemented scraps of paper off of their base pan isn't fun either, lol. That might have just been my boys though. But, it wasn't a few months on paper before I switched them back over to regular cheap fleece. Plus, I don't think it provided enough cushion; both of my rats (who were admittedly portly before I slimmed them down) developed a pressure sore on one of their hind feet. It improved with weight loss and bedding them on fleece, but never fully disappeared. I think that using it in their litter pan wouldn't be bad, though. If it's about the cost, I buy cheap fleece blankets from Walmart, CVS, etc., and you can re-wash them so you don't have to purchase more until they get too chewed up.
 
I believe that it ok, but not great, if the paper uses vegetable dye ink

The ink will get onto them and they will likely ingest it when grooming themselves
 
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I have always used newspapers to line the base of the cage and also for bedding. Here in the UK the ink is safe and my rats have always loved to shred up the paper to make their beds. I do agree that it isn't great to give padding for comfort, so I use fleeces as well and have lots of hammocks for my ratties to snuggle in.
I like the newspaper as it is so easy and quick to replace, compared to washing fleeces.
 
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