Pine dried bedding: consult

[Florencia]

Hi everyone, I'm Florence .
I've got 3 cavies now and a sow who's just -accidentally--gave birth yesterday to two beautiful apparently healthy pups.
I know that there are better beddings for cavies than the pine, but here where I live (Buenos Aires, Argentina) does not exist such "CareFresh" bedding or others, but I have contacted a chinchilla professional breeder who uses a special dried pine bedding..I have bought a bag. It is hused as bedding for those horses that race...I don't know what it's like there but here they take very special care for those horses move a lot of money on bets... The bedding is clear, no dust, the package was well closed and comes with the brand name on it as the contact information. It seems much better than the other ones I used to buy (bad packaging, full of dust, no brand name so you don't know who you're buying to or who's responsible for it)...anyway, it still "smells"...it is not a badly strong smell, but you can tell it is a slightly pine...
Is that ok anyway or was I cheated???
I do all that I can to keep them happy, actually they jump and "prrrrrrrrrr" all day long specially when I let them out of the cage and put them all together on the playground. I really love them so anyone with experience could tell me other chances to pine bedding?

 

[Ly&Pigs]

You will need to let the bedding air out more before you use it to try to get rid of more of the pine smell. Find a large, kind of shallow container and put enough bedding in it for a cage cleaning. Use your hands and move the bedding around inside a few times per day and do this for several days (at least a week or so) before using it in the cage. This will help rid it of more of the phenols.

Alternatives to pine bedding would be aspen and fleece (must use with another material underneath such as puppy pads, mattress pad, crib pads, towels, newspapers, etc.). There are other beddings but I don't know if you can get them in Buenos Aires.

 

[MissCin]

I used pine shavings for a while until I noticed that my Kimmy had a piece of pine shaving stuck to her vagina I can imagine the pain she went trough. If you can't find other types of bedding you should consider using fleece.

 

[Florencia]

Thanks to you all for your suggestions. I will put them in practice

 

[this_lil_piggy]

I buy the dried pine bedding, and it does still smell, but it is a dried wood smell.... being a wood product it is going to have a faint odor of wood. It is quite different than the breath taking sappy fresh pine smell that undried pine shavings have. One way you can tell if it is dried or not is to rub some of the shavings in your hand. If you get a oily film on your hands, it isn't dried.