Bedding is a very important part of preparing your rats new home environment. They are going to sleep in it, potty in it, eat in it, and spend the majority of their days in or on it, so it should be the safest bedding for them. In my own opinion aspen is the best, but regardless- stear clear of pine and cedar and any type of softwood bedding! Aspen is perfectly okay... I have also found out that walmart sells a bedding called "softwood shavings" it does not list the specific woods it contains but by the smell pine is a main ingredient so also stay away from that!

The reason pine and cedar are so dangerous is also the reason why they are desirable to people who don't know any better. They cover up smells... Pine and cedar and some other softwoods contain phenols which are caustic, poisonous, acidic compounds present in softwoods. These phenols are routinely diluted for use in disinfectants (such as pine sol and lysol). Both of these products use phenols and can cause liver and kidney damage in rodents, rabbits, cats, dogs, and humans. They are what make disinfectants cover smells and cedar and pine shavings cover the smell of animal urine.

A rats immune system is already fragile but their respiratory systems are even more fragile so I am 100% against the use of softwood shavings and recommend using Aspen for it's quality, and price.

In our Ferret Nation cages we line the shelves and tray with fleece and then have a litter pan in the corner of each cage with aspen in it. The rats are now potty trained and it makes keeping the cage clean a sinch!

I have decided to test out as many different types of bedding as possible in order to give the public an idea of what each type of bedding is like when used for rats. Please keep in mind that these "reviews" are from my own personal experiences with these particular types of bedding and other people may have different results or opinions.

We use & recommend Premier Pet Aspen Bedding. It is pretty good at keeping odors down to a minimum and has no harmful oils or added scents. We buy the large bag at Petco for $12.99 which is a great price for such a large bag. Your ratties will thank you for it!

Carefresh bedding has become a very controversial bedding in my rattery. It has proved to be very effective in eliminating odors and it is for the most part low dust. I don't like that it takes almost a half a bag to fill just one of my medium sized cages and 50 Liters is in the neighborhood of $16 to $20 a bag which is not very cost effective with multiple rats. One of the most disturbing things about this bedding is that we have had 2 rats die from impaction by eating it both times it was used, so when using carefresh I recommend keeping a very close watch on your little ones.

Carefresh colors has proved to be an okay bedding. It seems to be made of a much softer material than regular carefresh and the rats enjoyed pulling it in to their igloo's and nesting with it. No one tried to eat it, which was a major concern on my part having had two bad carefresh experiences in the past. The down fall to this bedding was that it only came in very tiny bags (5liters) for $4.00 each. 1 bag filled the bottom of a 20 gallon aquarium housing two, 5 week old rats for 7 days. At the end of the 7 days there was little to no odor and it wasn't leaking any dyes or colors. The rats did move the bedding around quite a bit leaving bare parts of the cage several times a day that got soiled on. Overall I do like the bedding but don't recommend it for multiple rat owners. My daughter is currently using this bedding for her 2 pet mice and it is working quite nicely.