Pine wood?

[BrokenBlue]

Hi

I want to make some wooden boxes with doors and windows in for my bunnies to climb on, hide in and play with. We pretty much only have pine wood and I was wondering it if was safe for them? I know pine shavings aren’t safe but I have heard that the solid wood is. I want to make something a bit more durable than cardboard boxes. I’ll start off by making a few little houses out of some wooden boxes joined together with tunnels connecting them,  if it works I might move on to making a whole castle for them!

Thanks

[joea64]

From what I found online just now, pine wood is safe IF it’s been kiln-dried first, though I’m not sure if that applies to shavings or to solid wood. Pine firewood, according to the House Rabbit Society, is also chew-safe for rabbits. And according to this old thread:

https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/109230/Default.aspx

untreated, unfinished pine wood is good for building rabbit hutches and habitats. However, that thread dates from 2010, so new information may have come up since then.

[Q8bunny]

Pine is only safe IF untreated and extremely well heat/naturally dried. Since there’s no guarantee that commercially available pine meets these standards, I for one wouldn’t risk it. If you can source “organic” kiln-dried pine, though, your play castle sounds awesome and I hope you post pictures when it’s ready.

[Vienna Blue in France]

Ive used pine slats and pine wood planks for my condo (base edges, uprights and beams) and to make frames for my rug protection (otherwise the edges get nibbled, chewed and ingested). They were the cheapest avail.

Tbth ive no idea what treatment they went through to get to the DIY shop….. If the buns have plenty of other stuff to play with and chew on and you keep an eye on the fact that they make be chewing but not ingesting any….

Ive a pallet outside under the shade so they can sleep whilst off the (damp) ground…. im pretty sure pallets are made from pine too… they tend to nibble a bit and spit.

[Boston's Mama]

Where I am all available bunny wooden items are pine , untreated.

[Bam]

Solid pine wood is ok. The bunny can only eat so much of it at one sitting. The surface-area of plain wood is much smaller than that of sawdust or shavings, so the amount of terpenes that gets released to the air is much smaller. Most of the terpenes stay inside the wood.

[BrokenBlue]

Thanks everyone! I will go ahead and start building then. It’s untreated and I’m pretty sure it’s been dried properly. It’s hard to get any other types of wood around here but we have plenty of pine wood lying around.

[BrokenBlue]

Sorry for all the questions. What about hardboard? Is it safe? It would be easier to make stuff out of.

[Author]

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