[Gpdd] HEALTH: Cardboard

[Sandra Oliver-Poore]

Hi Lynn. Nice to hear from you and top o' the day to your young ladies.

I have wondered about that often. Here's what I think:
1. You should be sure that the tubes are not handled with any dirty hands;
you have to watch how you and anyone else in your house use TP. For instance
when the old tube is empty don't touch the old one until you have washed.
Have a new full tube already right there to use until you are finished.
Clean your hands then retrieve the tube from the bathroom. Needless to say,
you can't be using the hand you wiped with at all until that hand is washed.
Flush the toilet with lid down before washing and handling the tube. I don't
know if it's true or an urban myth but it's said the average toilet is
cleaner than the average kitchen sink. So I wash both more frequently now.
:)  

2. Look at the tube. There are two places for glue. The TP can be glued to
the tube that can be cut out. The cardboard material has some kind of glue
in it to hold it together; we're stuck with that. 

Then you just have to make a value judgment like with any of the commercial
foods and toys that are made for piggies. Many of those toys are brightly
dyed, and that dye runs and runs. There are no restrictions about what can
color or glue pet toys. So just take the whole of the artificial things your
piggies get and sort it out in your mind to where you feel you have the best
combination of risk and reward for your girls. Maybe organic food or hay or
homegrown veggies makes up for other contaminants. They can't live in a
bubble, but on the other hand we know that on average and not accounting for
genetics that piggies with trained slaves do better that untrained slaves. 

So for me I just let Sammy have a tube once in a while and I try to minimize
exposures to all the other bad stuff in life but still let him have fun. If
I had a piggie that constantly eats cardboard from any source I would limit
that, and I would not let him have any colored or printed cardboard, or that
had tape on it, even if it was removed. 

Sandy, Sammy, and AR who eats no cardboard or anything but is so adorable.