Newspaper hazards?

[Scott]

Most of my cages have trays lined with newspaper. I've heard from my earliest days of living with parrots that colored newspaper is hazardous. The assertion is the fumes are hazardous even if restricted from physical contact. My local paper seems to have an affinity for more color and it is a real challenge to line cages with exclusively black and white pages! It is such a challenge I collect USA Todays while travelling as one side of each sheet is almost always black/white, so I place them colored-side down.

Forgive me if this has been discussed, as a search found threads dealing with the hazards of physical contact with non-soy colored papers! To be clear, my birds never touch the paper!

 

[Kiwibird]

If they aren't bothering the paper, I wouldn't worry about it. I think the hazard comes from giving it to bird specifically to shred or birds who like to pull up the paper on the bottom to shred.

OR you could use fabric liners like I do. I just shake them off outside, use a plastic scraper to get off the "big chunks" of poo/food and run them through the washing machine. They're also absorbent and have a waterproof backing. You have to make them or find someone who can sew to make them, but they're well worth the investment IMO. I've been using for over a year now, and will NEVER go back to paper!

 

[jiannotto9492]

I'm gonna agree with Kiwi. The newspapers should bother birds if they're not shredding it.