What is suitable as litter substrate?

[Deleted]

I'm curious... When I had my first experience with ferrets, I didn't know much and I plan to do it right this time.

I had started using all natural, untreated wood pellets for the pellet stove things as litter for my cat. It worked great! When she peed, they'd dissolve to the bottom of the littler box and poop was easy to scoop out. Plus I could get a 50lb bag for 12 bucks. I used it for my ferrets and it was a dream. There wasn't much urine odor, and poo was easy to get off the top with a paper towel. I never had any issues with attempts to eat it or anything of that nature. When they were out for play time, I just put puppy poo pads in all the corners in the room and a couple litter boxes for the one that liked to use the boxes and it was a good time all round

My question: Is this really safe for the ferrets?? Should I still plan to use this and find a new supplier for my new babies?

[Deleted]

Actually I just found this:
www.ferret.org/pdfs/education/bestlitter.pdf

[Lily]

I personally use woodstove pellets and been using it for 4 years.

To be honest, it's the most price and odour efficient litter I have ever used. The only downside I have experienced was the tracking... Man oh man, that tracking can become a real pain!

I have heard a mixture of opinions with woodstove pellets, mainly because of the possible phenols. My woodstove pellets are kiln dried and safe to use for animal bedding; it even says safe for horse bedding but not so sure on that. I've been using the same bag the entire 4 years and never had an issue with all of my ferrets. Just the tracking is very annoying. I won't get a different bag without reading the labels first. I'd double check if it's kiln-dried and safe to use for animal bedding. 

The pet-safe woodstove pellets are essentially the same as "Feline Pine" litter. Just costlier because of marketing; slap a cat's face on there and claim it's for pets and more pet owners will buy it.

If you're worried it may harm your ferret(s), another great litter you can use is newspaper-based pellets, such as Yesterday's News (Looks to be the most popular). Make sure you find the scent-free though! Although good, I found it wasn't as absorbent as the woodstove pellets, and some minor tracking. A 20lb bag costs me $20 though, which I had to buy every month, compared to the 40lb bag of woodstove pellets that I'd get for $8 which I only had to buy once every 2-3 months.

[Deleted]

Yeah I think I'll stick to the pellets. I don't remember the tracking being too bad but the odor control was fantastic. I'm in East Texas and there are plenty of feed stores around that I'm sure I can get it at :3

[unclejoe]

Ok, we use pine pellet horse bedding from Tractor Supply and other feed stores. It can get tracked out of the box. It does a good job of controlling odor. there have been a couple cases of WOOD STOVE pellets causing health problems in humans that handle them a lot. Wood stove pellets are made from hard wood, where pine is a soft wood. As far as we know, wood pellets have never led to health issues in our ferrets.

[Deleted]

Would soft wood stove pellets be the same as the pet brand? I'm going to the store to look closer at these because the site doesn't say what wood they're made with but I found these.
Here