How Much Paper Do You Let Them Eat?

[pennick]

In reading everyones posts, paper balls and paper bags are great as a toy. They love to chew paper as we all know. I hate watching my piggies devour paper as if it was a chocolate cream pie. Every time I see them munching on paper, bite after bite after bite after bite, I envision their tummies filling up with my Sunday Newspaper and that thought just goes against me. I certaintly wouldnt want to eat paper.

ANYWAY, my question. How much paper do you allow your piggy to eat at one sitting?

 

[critterlover]

None. I used to have toilet paper rolls in there which they devoured and when I wiped their chins, they ate the tissues. My husband who sometimes has more common sense than me, said 'what the heck are you doing. that's toxic'. OK, I think he's right. They use all sorts of chemicals to make paper products. I wouldn't eat it myself. I don't think it's good for them so I removed the stuff from the cage. Nuff said.

 

[Ly&Pigs]

I toss in a toilet paper roll once a week and give them one paper bag per week. The girls have a way of letting me know when they think they are getting low on hay (they usually still have half their hay box full), they start munching the bag. I give them a new big pile of hay and up to the loft they go and the roll and the paper bag are forgotten.

 

[dagwellismypigy]

I use some newspaper to line the hay loft part of my cage, when I hear them munching on paper instead of hay I know they need hay. I don't really worry about it much. I give them paper bags when ever we go shopping, but I only leave them in for a day, after that they get nasty.

 

[Piglet]

I let them eat as much as they want. They take several small nibbles daily, but they're so small I don't think its doing them anyharm.

Sorry, I had to laugh when you said they ate the tissues...

 

[suzy_99]

I don't think that all paper is toxic. You should not let them chew on anything that has a gloss or any colors, other than that the odd bit of paper is not going to hurt them. Mine chew on cardboard all of the time and they have yet to get sick from it.

 

[Smudger]

I read (and the article may have been wrong) that when it comes to newspaper, the ink is only toxic when wet (that's wet as in 'fresh off the printing press' wet, not 'week old newspaper that's had water spilled on it' wet). Once it's dry it's ok.

 

[lauren]

If they love to eat paper that much, then I'd offer them other things... A tunnel made of pieces of pine -- you can get scrap lumber cheap at your local hardware/lumberyard ... Or make a tunnel out of a bent grid, and cover it with hay..

 

[critterlover]

Doesn't anyone find it a bit strange that we carefully read pellet ingredients, even ordering Oxbow pellets in order to avoid toxic preservatives, but feed our pigs paper products when we don't even know what its made out of. Maybe they don't get sick in the short term, but what about the long term buildup of chemicals in their bodies? Wouldn't it be better to do what lauren suggested and give them lots of hay and safe wood to chew on rather than stuff that's been through a factory?