I had been talking with Jerseygirl about this as she had mentioned seeing a litter material of cardboard chips (brand name Ecobed) to buy where she lives. These cardboard litters are made from print-free plain cardboard, the kind we use for our rabbits anyways.

I can't buy the Ecobed litter where I am but I thought I'd try making my own to see if it is worthwhile.The better your shredder the easier it is to make it. My shredder requires me to break the cardboard into rather small pieces so it took me about 10 minutes total to remove any tacks, stickers and tape from the boxes and make enough to fill my large litter cage.

Absorbency is excellent,  and there is no dust. I do have one problem, though, my shredder is the confetti type and the cardboard pieces attach themseves to my angora rabbit's skirt.

I took pictures to show how much cardboard I used.

one medium box and one small

I broke up the pieces to half of what is shown here so not to kill my shredder

will post tomorrow about odor; so far I can't tell.

Very eco-friendly! I'm curious to see how it works.

I like that it's dust free. Whenever I've used carefresh I've ended up with papery cardboard dust all over everything.

hehe, yes, you called it right, Barbie! It is not an industrial shredder but my boyfriend bought it for me specifically for making litter, newspaper shreds at the time. It's a Fellowe's heavy-duty one. It says it can take 12 sheets of paper at a time and I put the cardboard through in small single sheets.

Posted By Elrohwen on 02/10/2010 11:13 AM.

I like that it's dust free. Whenever I've used carefresh I've ended up with papery cardboard dust all over everything.

 

I found this comparison of litters as far as dust goes:

(from Ecobed's website www.ecobed.co.uk/)

This is an extract from the table of data produced by University of Liege Belgium when using EcoBed.

Respirable dust particles by litre of air and viable spore concentrations (colonies forming units (cfu)) in 1.5 cubic foot of air of Aespergillus fumigatus (A. fumigatus), Faenia rectivirgula (F. rectivirgula) and Thermoactinomyces vulgaris (T. vulgaris) in different types of bedding and supplement (Mean ± standard deviation).

Respirable dust A. fumigatus F. rectivirgula T. vulgaris   Particles/ litre of air cfu/42.45 litres of air cfu/42.45 litres of air cfu/42.45 litres of air Wood shavings 31492 ± 12910 710 ± 124 53 ± 29 79 ± 59 Good Straw 11571 ± 4897 402 ± 214 18 ± 17 33 ± 17 Flax Straw 9251 ± 1776 104 ± 23 10 ± 9 60 ± 13 EcoBed 6744 ± 1925 1.1 ± 1.9 0 ± 0 0.1 ± 0.4 Values with no common designations are significantly different (p < 0.05) (Mann-Whitney statistic test).

I am surprised you found Carefresh dusty. I have never used it but their website claims it is free from dust. 

I found another co. that makes a similar litter to Ecobed. (It is kind of crazy to see ripped newspaper to buy. )

Their products are really clean by the sounds of it, they vacuum up any dust prior to baling it. Plus, they say the cardboard is new, not used.

www.finacard-uk.com/index.php

Girl, you are commited! That's a good shred size. I found this US based company. http://www.airliteusa.com/critterstrips.html Also, found Oz one that I think airlite might be parent to. Bedding is called Eco Animal Bedding. http://www.ecoab.com.au/products.html

I put woody pet back in litter box last night. I only tried sheets of cardboard. Probably should have changed it sooner. Urine smell not too bad it was just smell of wet cardboard I didn't like. Noticed that right away with the stuff I added. I do think you get different results depending on type of cardboard you use.
Petzy, be interested to see how this works out for you. Recycling like this is great.

I was reading about zeolite - used as a horse stall deodoriser. Might look into adding this to my litter trials. Sometimes a combo of things may give the best result.

Sarita, those boxes sound good as likely they are classed "food grade" so safe.
 

The advantage of the manufactured litter like CritterStrips is that they are made from pre-consumer waste. Who knows where the cardboard has been that I used? Boxes travel.
Zeolite can only be used under a grate, though.

Keeping in mind that my house is very dry and cool this time of year, after 24 hours there is no smell, even close to the litter. When I have used newsprint shreds I usually have some smell by now. The cardboard strips, being small and corrugated, absorb much more liquid than newsprint or Aspen shavings. I should get some Yesterdays News and compare it too that. -- Anyone here got some YN and is willing to do an experiment? I want to put some of my strips into a glass and see how much water they will absorb; I'd like to compare it with YN since it has such a small particle size also and is paper-based.
Karla, I think once the cardboard is broken up into shreds with the corrugated edges exposed, urine won't stay on the surface for long as it would on a flat piece of cardboard.

Posted By Petzy on 02/10/2010 06:27 PM

The advantage of the manufactured litter like CritterStrips is that they are made from pre-consumer waste. Who knows where the cardboard has been that I used? Boxes travel.
Zeolite can only be used under a grate, though.

I'm not really worried about this, personally, since Otto never ever tries to eat his litter. But it would definitely be something to be concerned about with a bun who did nibble. A grid would be a nice solve.

Posted By Sarita on 02/11/2010 12:04 PM
Okay Professor Petzy - I have Lone Star Bedding which is a pellted pine - do you need that tested? If so, can you give me the instructions again on how you want this done?

Are you making fun of me? --I can take it....

I will post my absorbency demonstration today and make instructions clear. I hope.

*It would be a good idea if several members tested the same material, too, so yes, please test the Lone Star brand litter if you are up for it.