Rat Health Care & Information

Rat Bedding

The Dangers of Using Cat Litter for Rat Bedding:

In this changing world of what people are bedding their rats on, cat litters have become popular. But care needs to be taken to as to the contents of these cat litters, bearing in mind that they were primarily designed for cats to visit briefly to ‘do their biz’ on and not for rats to live on permanently. Remember that your rat has its nose close to whatever bedding you give it for a large percentage of an average day, so it doesn’t want highly fragranced or dusty bedding material.

ONLY cat litters that are 100% recycled paper or clearly state on the packaging that they are safe for small animals seem to be safe for use with rats. As far as I know, this only includes Biocatolet (which actually says on the pack that it's suitable for small animals and is 100% recycled paper), Yesterdays News (also says safe for small animals) and Bob Martins paper based cat litter (100% recycled paper). Some of the supermarket own brands say paper based, but they aren't 100% paper or even close – paper based just means it came from a paper based source and as you can see by Tescos statement about their own product below, it’s not actually paper!! I have been following this up and collecting data after a couple of people have had similar symptoms appear in their rats which at the time were being bedded on either a mineral based cat litter or cheap supermarket brand 'paper' based cat litter. The symptoms are as per pituitary tumour/stroke/ear infection – head tilt, listless, unable to hold food properly, loss of balance and in 5 cases the rats have died. (2 people with 2 rats and 1 with 1 rat) - other rats at the same premises were affected but the litter was changed quickly enough and they recovered with treatment - it seems too much of a coincidence for all these rats to have these symptoms while being bedded on heavy chemical based litters so risking these other cat litters is not a good idea. Below are statements received from Tesco regarding their own brand cat litters:

From Tesco:
Tesco paper based cat litter is produced from residual solids recovered from paper mills. It consists of approximately 30% cellulose and 70% minerals (clay, chalk).

Also from Tesco:
Tesco Lightweight Cat Litter is produced from a mineral called moler. This is a natural mixture of clay and diatomaceous earth. The process involves heating the natural clay in a furnace to produce the light, porous product with the high absorbency which makes this ideal for cat litter. The odour controller used in Tesco Lightweight Cat Litter is a fragrance composition which is a multicomponent mixture of natural and synthetic fragrance ingredients. Based on the identity and concentration of the individual ingredients and considering the toxicological, dermatological and allergological data, it has been concluded that this fragrance compound is suitable for the intended application under normal use conditions.

'Thomas' cat litter and an Asda own brand one are also implicated in this – neither are paper and neither state they are recommended for use with small animals. After getting this information, I took a wander round the supermarkets and none apart from the Bob Martins and Biocatolet are 100% paper!! I am suspicious that there are chemicals or something else in these other cat litters which are poisoning the rats. I only have the data I have collected, but to me, it gives enough reason never to use anything other than Biocatolet, Yesterdays News or Bob Martin if the choice is to use cat litter for rats bedding. If anyone has anything more to add to this, I would love to hear it as evidence either way.

Also be wary of the pine and wood based cat litters as these will almost certainly be pine based and contain harmful phenols, which is often the reason people feel the need to move away from shavings. Remember that the cat passes by the litter whereas the rat lives on the litter!

Other alternatives:

Personally my choice of rat bedding is the Ecopetbed bedding, obtainable by mail order by phoning 01584 810717 or take a look at http://www.earthlyenterprises.co.uk for more information - this is cardboard strips and was originally marketed as horse bedding before they recently started marketing the same bedding as pet bedding. Another cardboard based bedding is Finacard which is a finer, more straw like shredded cardboard bedding. On testing it in comparison to Ecobed, it came in a close second with most of the same qualities I've grown to expect from Ecobed, but because it is finer, it tended to get kicked out the cage more.

There are links to other cardboard bedding suppliers on the links page.

I will happily use any of the three 100% paper based litters that I mentioned earlier in the litter trays and I use Safebed paper wool for the nest bedding. Until I changed to the Ideal bedding, I mostly used spruce shavings from a local mill, which I had no problems with; they were dust free and had no smell about them at all and were sold as horse bedding - from experience of keeping horses in the past, they do have sensitive respiratory systems and require the best bedding going.

I like using Biocatolet, Bob Martins or particularly Yesterdays News in the litter trays, but the cost of using it for main bedding across 10-20 cages gets a bit steep – 1 bale of cardboard for £6 just about covers my lot per fortnight!! (The price I am paying is vastly cheaper because I have storage space and order a pallet of 24 bales at a time which is the minimum for free shipping – tip – if you have the room, ring to order a single bale of the horse bedding sized packages as it works out more economical! Each horse bale is about 2.5’ x 2’ x 1’ in size and weighs roughly 20kg and costs around between £10-15 or so including P&P, the Petbed versions are much smaller in size and less economical on price. Bear in mind also that these bedding suppliers are developing their product range and things do seem to change quite regularly as to what is available, there was a sample of a tobacco scented one a while back, which is made from boxes used to carry tobacco!)

Other alternatives are Megazorb, which is made from virgin wood pulp and is deemed to be safe for rats and Hemcore which is hemp bedding.

Many rat owners still use standard shavings from pet shops, which will almost certainly be pine or spruce (which is a form of pine). There are a number of articles on why pine is bad for rats, but there are also a large number of people who still claim they have seen no evidence in their own rats. It is also possible to buy hardwood shavings in the UK now which is Aspen and this does not come with the same risks from the phenols as softwood shavings.

Interestingly in the time I have been keeping rats, I have noticed no real changes in their respiratory state based on the multitude of beddings I have tried but I do find the air cleanest personally using my current set up and I sneeze less!

Article written by Estelle

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