Hamsters, gerbils and mice do not sleep on their bedding, they sleep inside it. It gets shredded, tunnelled and packed in around them, so the material spends the night against a face and a set of airways roughly the size of a thumbnail. That is why dust is a bigger question in a small animal cage than anywhere else in the house.

This is a paper flake, made from repurposed food-grade paper — a material that had to be clean enough for food in its first life. Norfolk describe it as white, absorbent, soft, dust free and odour controlling, and as allergy free, which is the specific job it exists to do: somewhere to go for a pet that reacts to sawdust, hay or straw. They list it for hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, degus, rabbits, chinchillas, mice and rats.

• Made from repurposed food-grade paper
• Described by Norfolk as dust free, soft, absorbent and odour controlling
• Stated as allergy free, for pets that react to sawdust, hay or straw
• Suits hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, degus, rabbits, chinchillas, mice and rats
• White, with the exact shade not guaranteed because the paper is reused
• Sold here in two pack formats

On the two packs, which cannot be compared directly. One is sold by weight and the other by volume, and bedding is used by volume — so there is no honest way to line them up against each other without opening both. Norfolk publish no absorbency figure, no expanded volume and no dust rating to us either, which means how many cage changes a pack gives you is not something this page can answer. Their own caveat is worth repeating as well: the brightness of the colour varies, because the paper has already been something else.

Who it's for: keepers of a hamster, gerbil or mouse who want a nesting material that is not wood shavings, and anyone with a small pet — or a person in the house — that reacts to sawdust, hay or straw.