making newspaper bedding?

[KatTheHippie]

Currently, I use aspen in my boy's cage. I really hate how it gets stuck to the fleece on their shelves, and it sticks to the carpet, and just gets everywhere in general.

I decided to try making my own bedding, since we have a LOT of newspaper lying around. I shredded it up, and was just going to try that, but then I found some tutorials on how to soak it in water and crumble it out, and let it dry. Then it would be like home made Carefresh bedding. So I did that, and I'm curious to see how it works, but it was a LOT of work and took a lot of newspaper for not that much bedding.

Anyone else have any experience with this? Does anyone use just plain shredded newspaper? How does that work?

 

[2Rats]

Interesting --- you will have to let us know how it turns out.
Yeah I hate how aspen clings to the fleece - but the ratties tend to get aspen on it anyways!

Also that w/b a great way to get the ink off of it somewhat.
Aspen is the ONLY wood shavings I use for mine. I like carefresh & of course it is a bit more pricey than aspen! Generally I use a mixture of the 2. I prefer 100% carefresh but sometimes close to payday I might have to lean more towards the aspen I clean their cages twice a day,,, well mostly I take out hand fulls of any soiled bedding & replace it. I do 100% replacement about once a week or so. Sometimes I swear they have sh*t parties, so that requires A LOT of replacing!!!

 

[KatTheHippie]

I spot clean every day and do a whole cage clean once a week too. And being a recent college graduate still searching for a job, money's tight and Aspen is cheap! I love paper beddings though, they're so much softer and comfier, and in my opinion, more absorbent and odor reducing.

If you're interested at all, the home made bedding is actually pretty easy, if you've got some time to do it You can use any type of paper really, I've seen some people use toilet paper because it's soft and dissolves easier, but I've also seen students use their school papers to recycle them, construction paper can be used for color, computer paper is pretty cheap and easy, and newspaper so long as it's soy based.

You shred the paper (or if you don't have a shredder like me, cut it into small pieces) then soak those in warm water. The warmer the water, the quicker the pieces dissolve. Then you mush it all around and make sure everything gets nice and mushy. To speed this process up, some people put it into a blender or food processor.

Then pour it into a mesh strainer, or an old t-shirt to wring out the water. Make sure you get out as much water as possible.

Then there are options. You can spread the paper crumbles on a pan and bake them in the oven on a low temperature to get the moisture out. You can set them outside in the sun, or inside on a sunny window, but that will take a few days to dry them out. Or you can put them in a pillow case, and toss them in the dryer for a few short cycles, checking periodically.

 

[2Rats]

That's a very good idea, but I would go crazy during the process !:yikes:
I'm not a very patient person to do something like that. But really it's a wonderful idea! I guess that's why the Carefresh stuff is a bit more expensive than shavings. I'm sure they have machines to take the place of people but it is still more time consuming than shavings. You college kiddos have more energy to do stuff like that - LoL

How about some pics of your ratties???

 

[KatTheHippie]

These are my boys

 

[RattieGurl]

Currently, I use aspen in my boy's cage. I really hate how it gets stuck to the fleece on their shelves, and it sticks to the carpet, and just gets everywhere in general.

I decided to try making my own bedding, since we have a LOT of newspaper lying around. I shredded it up, and was just going to try that, but then I found some tutorials on how to soak it in water and crumble it out, and let it dry. Then it would be like home made Carefresh bedding. So I did that, and I'm curious to see how it works, but it was a LOT of work and took a lot of newspaper for not that much bedding.

Anyone else have any experience with this? Does anyone use just plain shredded newspaper? How does that work?

thats what im doing, i have a paper shredder, and so i ham using any newspaper, or any (non)important papers or magazines, whatever, i just throw it into the paper shredder, it makes perfect little begging for them. it catches the pee, and poo if they are not littler trained. and best of all if its papers that you don't want garage prowlers to see, it will be covered in rat poo and pee

I used to have a gerbil before I became homeless (now living in permanent HUD Housing) He LOVED to just shred everything you put in the cage. I didn't even bother shredding the paper, he did it himself. So you could even add some full size newspaper in there let them shred paper themselves too.