# cedar or oak sawdust? either or neither?



## shoofly (May 26, 2005)

i have access to clean, inexpensive local sawdust. they have cedar or another kind (i think it is oak, possibly some other hardwood) for sale. are both or either of these okay for goat bedding? the cedar is a little more expensive.

my goats are on pasture during the day, but i put them in at night to keep them safe.


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## HazyDay (Feb 20, 2007)

what ever you think smells better! Just make sure it doesn't become a Soupy mess! (AND NEVER FORGET TO TURN THIER WATER OFF! IT MAKES THE WHOLE BARN A SAWDUST SOUP! flaming...)


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## Oldntimes (Nov 26, 2006)

I personally would never use cedar for any of my animals. As it lets off natural Phenols which give it their aroma. These phenols interact with the liver and respiratory system in the body, potentially producing unwanted and harmful side-effects. However I have heard the same thing about pine, but have never had a problem with the natural kiln dryed pine shavings.


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## susanne (Nov 4, 2004)

you want neither of them. the only sawdust or shaving that would be save to use is kiln dried.


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## Vicki McGaugh TX Nubians (May 6, 2002)

I get sacks of hardwood and cedar shavings from a guy who planes down his own boards for cabinet making. They are wonderful! All the shavings from the mills out here are in these huge mounds, outside, they are sacked up as they have time, what they don't sack and sell themselves are sold in huge trailer loads you see going down the road daily. So although there is alot of talk on the internet about deadly mastitis caused by sawdust/shavings from raw wood, in real life, nope none zilch. 

I do now use kiln dried because I just don't want to go fill up my truck anymore and then come back and spread them, and my feed dealer carries kiln dried. But when he gets in the hardwood and cedar from the cabinet maker I snap them all up.  Vicki


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## shoofly (May 26, 2005)

the sawdust comes from a furniture maker - would that mean that they are kiln-dried?


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## susanne (Nov 4, 2004)

yes, the wood is either kiln dried or, if they are making expensive furniture, the wood was stored very long time, before they are making furniture out of it.
shavings from green woods, means from freshly cut trees, would not make a good bedding because as i mentioned before, can harbor bacteria that can lead to infections, either navel ill in newborns, or udder infections in does.

Bacteria that live in the environment generally have developed an ability to use organic materials such as wood products as foodstuffs.
the bacteria we are dealing with in green shavings, that often contains also the bark from the trees, are klebsiella.
kiln dried shavings doesn't harbor this bacterium.


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## DixyDoodle (Nov 15, 2005)

I wouldn't use cedar. I've heard it said that it is not safe for horses because of the oils and "fumes" as someone pointed out already, and can be harmful if ingested in larger quantities, and I suspect goats are less hardy than even horses.  Although I could be wrong about that. 

I use softwood (white) shavings that are meant for horse stalls. No scent to them. I started out using straw before that and found it to be very messy and difficult to sort through to clean up. Also, its absorbant quality is low, IMO. When wet, straw turns into a sopping heap of muck. When wood shavings get peed on, they tend to dry quickly, so your goats will not be standing in puddles.

The benefit to straw is found in winter, I think. It makes for a nice thick bed, so come winter I will be throwing straw down on top of the shavings for them to snuggle into.

I don't know about sawdust: would that not be bad for the respiratory system? Breathing in the fine particles, I mean?


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## shoofly (May 26, 2005)

Thanks for all of your responses so far - I am so confused trying to sort this all out!

Right now I'm using pine shavings I buy at the feed store, but I'm not thrilled about them because (1) they are relatively expensive (2) they come all the way from Canada and I live in PA! probably trucked here, seems like a big waste of energy, and I try to buy things local as much as I can (3) the shavings are pretty big and a little tricky to clean without wasting a lot.

I bought just two bags of the sawdust to try it out last week, and man, was it easy to clean. 

But of course, just after buying them, I ran into a site saying cedar was bad for goats and got concerned. And then found other sites saying cedar sawdust makes great bedding for goats. Ack!

I don't want to make my goats sick, and I also don't want to spend too much money and effort (the sawdust is easier and cheaper) if I don't need to. 

What do you think about the other non-cedar, hardwood sawdust option? Is sawdust in general bad because it's finer, as some of you brought up? Does anyone else here use sawdust (as opposed to shavings) for their goats?


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## southerngurl (May 11, 2003)

"They" also say that you shouldn't use cedar shavings to raise chicks or ducks, but lots of seasoned chicken raisers use them without a problem. I've used them several times for both.

I also used cedar shavings mixed in with pine for my weanling horse. I didn't use pure because they cost more. Cedar tends to repels insects and smells nice. Never heard of it actually causing a problem, but maybe someone has?


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