Types of cardboard that are safe for gerbils to chew

[conniew]

I have a question about the cardboard we put into the gerbil's cage for their chewing enjoyment.
I know about toilet paper tubing and paper towel tubing. But what about other house hold cardboard?
Like cardboard with printing on it like the chip board that many products come in that have the 
product printing on it?
Cereal boxes, zip lock boxes, kleenex boxes, soda cartons, etc. 

I read somewhere that they should only be given plain brown card board with no printing, stickers or tape on it. 
Glue is kind of hard to avoid as even toilet and paper towel tubes are glued together. Well nothing around the house
has absolutely no printing on it. Stickers are sometimes very hard to remove and tape as well.

We get a lot of cardboard boxes from Amazon deliveries and after taking off the stickers and tape sometimes I have a plain box,
but there is still that Amazon smile on the box. LOL!

I have seen pics with gerbil cages with product boxes in the cage for the gerbils to chew on. It is safe for the gerbil to chew on that type of cardboard?
Or should we stick to very plain cardboard?

Thanks for any input on this

[LilyandDaisy]

Hello,

I personally, and many others, tend to avoid using thick external cardboard like Amazon boxes because you never really know where it's been. During the pandemic there were some rumours about Amazon spraying their boxes with disinfectant and I'm not sure if there was any truth in that or not, but it does illustrate how you never be sure what's on external packaging.

Thin cardboard like cereal boxes, tissue boxes, general food boxes etc are generally considered fine. So stuff that might have been directly on a pavement or the back of a van, like an Amazon box, I personally avoid, but stuff that's probably only been on a supermarket shelf, I tend to use. The printing isn't a problem as the ink is non-toxic. I remove any tape or stickers, and if stickers are hard to remove, I just cut away that bit of cardboard.

Frozen food boxes tend to be a bit soggy and smell funny after being in the freezer, so most people don't use those either.

[conniew]

Mar 4, 2024 15:19:13 GMT -8 LilyandDaisy said:

Hello,

I personally, and many others, tend to avoid using thick external cardboard like Amazon boxes because you never really know where it's been. During the pandemic there were some rumours about Amazon spraying their boxes with disinfectant and I'm not sure if there was any truth in that or not, but it does illustrate how you never be sure what's on external packaging.

Thin cardboard like cereal boxes, tissue boxes, general food boxes etc are generally considered fine. So stuff that might have been directly on a pavement or the back of a van, like an Amazon box, I personally avoid, but stuff that's probably only been on a supermarket shelf, I tend to use. The printing isn't a problem as the ink is non-toxic. I remove any tape or stickers, and if stickers are hard to remove, I just cut away that bit of cardboard.

Frozen food boxes tend to be a bit soggy and smell funny after being in the freezer, so most people don't use those either.

Thank you so much for your input on the cardboard to use. Your point about Amazon boxes is a good one and I never thought of that. 
Good to know the printing on the household chip board boxes is OK. I have snack bag boxes I thought they would love to get into. 
Thanks again.

[Markpd]

Re boxes for frozen foods, isn't there some kind of chemical protection added to those boxes which are potential harmful to gerbils anyway?

L&D good point about cardboard boxes, I didn't consider that! (Although I've only ever used one of those for the gerbils, and it's been in their play pen (aka the 7ft tank) for years, so I guess it must be alright! lol).

[LilyandDaisy]

Mar 12, 2024 13:11:53 GMT -8 Markpd said:

Re boxes for frozen foods, isn't there some kind of chemical protection added to those boxes which are potential harmful to gerbils anyway?

L&D good point about cardboard boxes, I didn't consider that! (Although I've only ever used one of those for the gerbils, and it's been in their play pen (aka the 7ft tank) for years, so I guess it must be alright! lol).

I'm not sure what kind of chemical protection frozen food boxes might have, but I would think it's very unlikely to be anything very toxic given it's used around food. Especially given a lot of frozen foods, like fish fingers and potato waffles, are just in the box without any other packaging between them and the cardboard.

[Markpd]

Good point!

[conniew]

It seems some frozen food boxes are waxed. It seems like that would not be good for the gerbils to chew on either. Just a thought.