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I was told by the vet that the reason rats get lice easily from newspaper is because the wild rats run over the papers either at the factory, or when they're left outside the shop. The eggs of the lice are then transferred to the paper, and hence onto your ratties.

We don't get them because, like human headlice, ratlice, dog fleas and hedgehog mites (to name a few!) can't survive on other species' blood - we cannot give a dog headlice for example, and a rat can't give us ratlice.

Freezing the paper kills the eggs and makes it safe to use as bedding.

digiveg wrote:So, if you add shredded white paper to your garden, you might have also added a whole lot more as well...

To be honest, so much gets added to my garden from petrol fumes from the main road outside my house, from airplanes overhead, to rubbish thrown in from the playing fields next door, to goodness knows what else has been applied to the soil over the years by previous owners, that I don't really care if a tiny bit gets added from the shredded paper in my compost.

It's good to know the risks you are taking. Thank you for the warning but it's a chance I'm prepared to take.

Cheers
Zoe

the.fee.fairy wrote:I was told by the vet that the reason rats get lice easily from newspaper is because the wild rats run over the papers either at the factory, or when they're left outside the shop. The eggs of the lice are then transferred to the paper, and hence onto your ratties.

We don't get them because, like human headlice, ratlice, dog fleas and hedgehog mites (to name a few!) can't survive on other species' blood - we cannot give a dog headlice for example, and a rat can't give us ratlice.

Freezing the paper kills the eggs and makes it safe to use as bedding.

Thanks for that - pretty horrible to think that when you are reading the paper it is full of rat mites or their eggs.

Yet dog and cat fleas bite us humans so I'm a bit confused about that one.

The fleas will bite us, but not live on us.

It is quite a disturbing thought!! But they do say that you're never 6ft from a rat...

I do put mine in to compost. I'm not sure if this has an impact or not but I tend to either wet it (from the rain butt or urine) or put it in with a layer of squidgy moist stuff such as kitchen waste. I'm kind of assuming that the moisture helps it rot.

I have a home office also and regularly shred confidential documents. So far I've only used the shredded paper for litter in my ferret litter boxes!

But now, it's starting to stack up on me, only two ferret boxes and too much paper.

If you don't want to compost it for use on a veggie garden, start another small compost for use on flower gardens or lawn.

Peggy Sue wrote:I started my first compost heap this year. I read a book called 'Lady Muck' forst which was really amusing as well as helpful. I have acces to pretty much umlimited horse manure and she suggests 80% manure on the heap if possible. The rest has been kitchen waste (uncooked) and weeds/leaves/grass cuttings.

One of the 'no-no's from this book was flowers and weeds having gone to seed, and also too much woody stuff. I have to admit I ahve just put the flowers through the lawn mover and thought they can't come to much harm, even if it means more weeding. I have jsut found the thread that recommends drowning the stuff thats gone to seed- excellent, was wondering what to do with them.

What I'm wondering about is shredded paper. We have loads at work, not newspaper but the A4 stuff. Years ago you used to be able to sell this but now I guess the council are doing that so no-one is interested and the council will only take recylcling from domestic homes not industry (too much for my recycle bin at work). So can I use some of it on my compost heap? And how much (don't want to spoil 6 months hard work...)

Any other suggestions for shredded paper- waste really bugs me!

Offer it free to someone who keeps rabbits, guinea pigs or chickens, on the condition that they bag the soiled paper for you to take back. It will make better compost than just dry paper. Imagine all the lovely rabbit and guinea pig piddle and poopies.
I am always desperate for shredded paper to put into my chicken nest boxes and dog kennels, it gets chicken poop on, and the dogs crush and scratch about at it helping to break the fibres down too and if I take a lot out and replace with fresh, and leave the pile of old paper in the run, it gets piddled on by the stud dogs and piddle is good magic for compost heaps.

the.fee.fairy wrote:That reminds me, i've still got to give papermaking a go. I rescued some fine netting type stuff from an old pair of trousers a couple of weeks ago to make the frames from (i also resuced some even finer mesh silky type stuff to make another mesh for silkprinting from).
Might have a go next week when i've made the soaps.

One thing guys: If you're going to use paper as small animal bedding (i don't think chickens count, i think its just furry things), especially, rats, please please freeze it for a couple of hours before you give it to them. Otherwise, they could get lice (i know from personal experience and its not pretty!).

Out of interest where do you think the lice actually come from? What kind of lice are they? I ask because I have used shredded paper for the last 30 in my dog kennels ferret housing, rabbit and guinea pig housing aswell as the chicken nest boxes and I have never had anything with lice on here. I'm afraid it simply doesn't make sense to me that paper harbours lice. If this was so, then my indoor cats and dogs and myself would have lice too since I often store a couple of sacks of it in the house. Are they some kind of paper louse? Does paper harbour lice eggs or larvae? Which species (since lice are species specific) of animal louse actually lives and breeds on the paper?
I know that hay and straw harbours lice, which is why I refuse to use it in any of my animal housing and straw even harbours ringworm spores which is why the idiot puppy farmers I bought my gordon setter pup from, ended up with the whole litter infected (straw was cheaper than shredded paper so more profit for them).
All of my kennels, runs, hutches, henhouses have a deep layer of woodshavings and the beds and nestboxes have shredded paper with nary a louse to be seem.
So please elucidate.

the.fee.fairy wrote:I was told by the vet that the reason rats get lice easily from newspaper is because the wild rats run over the papers either at the factory, or when they're left outside the shop. The eggs of the lice are then transferred to the paper, and hence onto your ratties.

We don't get them because, like human headlice, ratlice, dog fleas and hedgehog mites (to name a few!) can't survive on other species' blood - we cannot give a dog headlice for example, and a rat can't give us ratlice.

Freezing the paper kills the eggs and makes it safe to use as bedding.

The vet who told you this was wrong and had obviously never visited a newspaper factory. If rats were allowed to run across uncovered paper, you can bet that lice would be the least thing you needed to worry about as jhundrens of people would get very ill from Weil's disease (leptospirosis). The thought of elderly people in old folks home handling their morning paper which had rat piddle on carrying lepto, and letting go of the paper to put a bit of toast into their mouth, this scenario repeated by everyone who reads a paper at the breakfast table bears no thinking about. There are no rats running about inside printers, each batch or bundle goes straight onto a lorry after being wrapped. Even if a bundle was left somewhere rat infested they are usually wrapped and I doubt they are simply left outside for hours because a heavy dew or shower would ruin them. So either they are shrink wrapped in clingfilmy stuff, or taken from the printers to the depot and then to paper shops within a couple of hours. Vet's aren't always right about things and I'm afraid your vet was wrong in this instance. He was talking twaddle in order to make himself look as though he knew where your rats had got lice from when he hadn't a clue but didn't want to let you know he was clueless.
I have had pet rats most of my adult life and they love their cosy paper bedding which I hand rip for them in thick strips to allow them to finish the job to their own satisfaction and as with my other animals, I have never had one of them with lice.

Hmm... In regards to the lice, I agree it can't be from the paper. In college we used newspaper for bedding for all the rats and mice in the animal lab, we shredded it by hand, and none of them ever got lice or any other illness. We had them for experiments so had to keep them healthy.

As for straw, we use it here for the cattle and horses and never have gotten ringworm or lice from their bedding either. The farm dogs run around it all the time too and they too are healthy.

I use it in my nesting boxes half shredded paper and half sugar cane mulch then it goes into the open compost heap. Some goes in the compost tumbler and some for the worms. At the moment it is also bedding for my new chicks. So there is plenty of uses for it here

In that case then, i don't know. i was merely following the advice of the fancy rat association, and the vet who treated my boys.

There was nowhere else they could have got them from, they didn't roam outside, or come into contact with any other rats, or animals. i can only surmise that that's why the vet said it was the newspaper.

Wild rats run over newspaper outside newsagents too.

Fee my son wants a pet rat I said only if they are Black ones a lady at the markets on Sunday was trying to sell baby bush rats as domestic ones. How silly does she think we are.
Anyway I am lead to believe that rats don't have a very long life span could you enlighten me on this
Thankyou in advance.