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From type of product to dispensing, disposal, and animal welfare, bedding choice has an impact in your facility.
What criteria should be used when selecting your laboratory animal bedding for small animals?
Some of the important questions to ask include, will my bedding selection have any effect on my research results? Do the animals and researchers seem happy with the bedding? What are the costs involved, including the cost per cubic foot of the bedding itself, the cost of dispensing the bedding, and the cost of disposing of the soiled bedding?
Let’s begin with an overview of available bedding products. There are essentially three categories of bedding products from which laboratories can choose: ground corn cobs, paper products, and wood products. Over 99% of all lab animal bedding falls into one of these three categories or is a mixture of two of them.
CORN COB
Corn cob products are the hardest of the beddings options and, because of this hardness, have the slowest absorption rates. They are also the heaviest of all the beddings, and do not give up moisture easily. Animal urine will flow to the bottom of the cage and very slowly absorb (bottom-up absorption). Cob beddings are also the freest flowing and most easily dispensed. Corn cob products come in three standard sizes; one-eighth inch, one-quarter inch, and a combination of both. Corn cob bedding is recommended by manufacturers not to be used right out of the bag; further processing by either autoclaving or irradiating is recommended. Corn cobs may become a food source for the animals and have been reported to affect studies where any fasting is required. Corn cob is the only bedding where animals have been observed to ingest their bedding in quantities larger than trace amounts. The corn cob is processed fresh during the growing season, and is taken from large piles of excess cob during the colder non-growing months. When corn cob sits for long periods before processing it can develop moulds, which in turn can create mycotoxins. These mycotoxins cannot be removed by either heating (autoclaving) or irradiation. Corn cobs are generally priced from the mid-range to the higher range in the pricing spectrum.
PAPER
Paper products are in general soft and highly absorbent and make for a good nesting material. Paper products can be used right out of the bag and are the lightest products available. They are not particularly free flowing for bedding dispensers and do not give up moisture easily. Paper products are manufactured primarily from wood chips which are then mechanically and chemically pulped to produce paper. They are either natural pulp (a brown colour) or they are bleached for either a white or grey colour. Every paper product has a chemical component from the chemicals used in the pulping or bleaching process. Paper products come in many shapes and sizes. Alpha cellulose is a bleached paper that is cut into either small square pieces or ones with rounded edges. In some instances, these products can be manufactured into approximately 1-½" spirals that are a very good nesting material. Generally, the better the nesting qualities of a bedding, the more difficult it is to dispense. These products vary significantly in price from the middle of the price spectrum to the very top.