Chinchilla Bathing Dust from Pets at Home

[LilyandDaisy]

www.petsathome.com/shop/en/pets/bathing-dust-for-chinchillas-3kg

First of all, this is more like a sand than a dust despite the name. It's sepiolite and sepiolite will always be somewhat dusty by its nature but it's mostly larger granules.

I was very happy with this sand until recently. There isn't much to say about a sand but it cleaned my gerbils' and hamsters' coats without causing any adverse effects.

However the third bag I bought caused 3 of my gerbils to sneeze and chirp. With one of the gerbils it was very clear that the sand was the issue as she would always start sneezing and chirping after I gave her fresh sand. All the sneezing cleared up when I switched them to a new brand of sand which actually has smaller granules and more dust than this one. I am not sure what the issue was but think I will give it a miss for a few months. I didn't notice anything obviously different about that bag.

[Markpd]

Curious, I wonder what the problem was?

I should review the stuff I get from zooplus, that's been pretty good for the most part, I did get one bag which was rather dusty though.

[betty]

Like you, I have used this substrate and found it to be overall very good at what it is for: gerbils like to bathe in it and they come up looking lovely. It does have a 'poof' of dust if poured from a great height - but then so do my cake mixes - so just make sure you don't top it up by pouring any into it while it is already in the enclosure.

Sepiolite is a well-used mineral in the gerbil fancy in the UK at least, and is much less abrasive than courses sands, so is less likely to cause damage to the hairs with overuse.

I have, however, noticed that in the past year or so this product has increased by nearly 60% in price - so if you want some going forwards I would stock up at this price at least - I mean - it doesn't have a use by date thankfully!

[Markpd]

betty the sand I use, or LilyandDaisy's sand?

[betty]

I was talking about the sand in the main thread with my comments, to stay on point. I thought these threads would be more useful if they didn't splinter off.

I would have made it clearer if it was yours rather than the product being reviewed to distinguish beteween them.


Also, I went and bought some more of the these myself before they go even higher in price - and the store I visited wasn't my usual one - so found they did 'loose' sepiolite too - so I have brought a bag of that home to try too (as hopefully if it is any good I can then buy it by the sack instead!