Carefresh substrate uses hemlock fiber

[AmityvilleHams]

After a bit of random internet browsing,I discovered that Carefresh does list hemlock as one source of the wood fiber in their substrate(of four known sources,although it's not a complete list so there could even be more unsafe wood used besides hemlock).With this information in mind,the safety of Carefresh is definitely in question.

Since some things need to be ingested in higher levels to be toxic,it does make me wonder if the baking soda issues Carefresh had in the past weren't only because of the baking soda.

[climber008]

Hmm. That definitely sounds quite suspicious...

Thank you Amityville for sharing these concerns with us! I'll have to look into this as well because it seems quite concerning for my little Kili.

[AmityvilleHams]

It's not a complete disaster with Carefresh being questionable(plus the quality issues in terms of high amounts of dust),so I suppose it could be quite a bit worse!

In the UK and Europe there are different sources of hemp substrate,which tends to be cheaper than Carefresh anyways.In the US(possibly Canada as well)we have Oxbow Pure Comfort,which is pure paper that is completely free of inks and such which aren't very good.Rabbit Hole Hay also has a paper substrate which can work out cheaper than Oxbow,and it is made with pure food grade virgin paper.