Best bedding for quick clean

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Kat1969

Kat1969

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Hi I recently started a new job and do not have as much time on my hands to clean the fleeces, what would you guys recommend as a less time consuming option. Thank you in advance.
 
Hi Kat,

I have tried every type of bedding going and always revert back to thick layers of newspaper > thick layer of shavings > and a generous helping of barley straw on the top (or sometimes the russell soft bedding instead)

Its very quick, very easy, and lasts a week with 4 piggies, no poo picking 3 times a day, changing fleece and towels and having to wash them all every other day!

Their hay go's in a hay rack on the side and they are well happy, they are able to forage, dig and lay comfortably.

If you have a home bargains and a range near you then your sorted, home bargains sell blocks of shavings for 49p each, and we use 2 per cage a week, and the Range do compact barley straw for £3.99 which does about 5 cages.

I have tried megazorb, it is very dusty, it works out to be very expensive and always looks a mess after a day or 2 when there are 100's of poo's laying around,

Tried newspaper and hay and the hay gets very stinky very quickly after it has been poo'd and pee'd on.

Fleece - too much work involved (for me as like i dont have too much spare time)

Shavings alone get smelly quickly and its very messy and gets kicked out of the cage everytime the piggy's popcorn.

Its down to personal preference, mine is newspaper, shavings and straw.
 
If you want to be super quick the paper and hay, I've always used shavings or a straw type bedding under the hay, but when you roll the paper up to dispose of it shavings tend to fall out and end up every where pow-powu just making the job longer. So I think paper and hay is the way to go for ultimate ease.
 
Pine shavings are considered to be a potential respiratory irritant as they can be dusty and they give of phenols, if you want to use shavings make sure you get the best quality ones you can find.

There are plenty of alternatives to shavings such as shredded carboard (finacard, ecobed, greenmile), shredded paper (Fitch bedding), newspaper pellets (papelit, breeder celect), aubiose and megazorb. There are pros and cons to everything, a lot of people on here have recommended Fitch so I was considering getting it next time I buy bedding. At the moment I'm using puppy pads, finacard and hay which works well for me. I also find newspaper cat litter pellets to work really well but are best with hay or something else on top.
 
Hi

I think I too have tried nearly every bedding going. I stopped using fleece a while ago, I found it a total pain to keep clean and dry and wash it etc. My piggies also got a lot of urine infections (Yes possibly a coincidence before anyone has a pop at me!) despite changing it every couple of days and using extra litter trays, etc. It would always be very wet. I have used megazorb which is ok but quite dusty and has a very odd smell, also its not great for outside as it blows everywhere. I like ecopet bed which is cardboard squares or finacard which is the same but just smaller pieces. I put a thick layer of newspaper down, followed by a thick covering of ecopet bed and then some hay to burrow in. I find it works really well and often when I go to clean them out the newspaper isn't wet at all. Papelit litter pellets are also good in areas under their water bottle that gets very wet.

I just roll everything up and stick it straight into our compost bin - Easy Peasy!
 
Can you tell me if using straw helps prevent the smell - I currently use newspaper and shavings, but the pigs pull all their hay out of the basket and then lay on it, poop and pee on it and within hours it stinks. I've tried putting the hay somewhere they cant pull it all over the place but they seem to enjoy laying on it. Would they like to lay on straw and does it get as stinky?
 
I have always found straw to be the least smelly! Try it and see how you get on, i personally use shavings under my straw so that this absorbs the wee.
 
I am sticking to fleece and washable bed pads, and mine have correx hay kitchens which are cleaned out every day, I just roll up the newspaper and throw it away. We have a Gtech carpet sweeper which picks up the poos and hay fromt he fleece in no time and we do a full change of fleece and bedpads once a week. If I didn't use fleece I would **** have the correx hay kitchens so they can burrow in the hay and then use newspaper and vet bed. The vet bed wicks away any wee etc. I don't like shavings as they can be a big contributor to fungal and respiratory issues.
 
Fitch :D it is crazily absorbent, sticks to itself but not the cage/hutch and scoops out without blowing all over
 
I use Huggies bed pads and hay. Pigs love it, goes a week between cleans, and when emptying it, just roll up into a sausage and remove. Quick sweep up of any dropped hay with a dustpan and brush, a squirt of disinfectant and wipe around and it's done :)
 
I am having a real dilemma about what to use for our piggies at the moment. We have always used newspaper to line the bottom of the cage followed by megazorb & then a layer of hay on top. However, I am getting a bit fed up with how wet the hay is getting. We have some quite course hay for bedding & it seems to get soaked but not drain through to the Megazorb & it then smells awful. I was debating changing to fleece but I'm not sure how often I would have to wash it all etc. Maybe I should try Fitch or Finacard...

Do other people have a complete layer of hay or just in some parts of the enclosure? It would be easier to remove wet bits of Megazorb if I could actually see them :)
 
When our piggy was indoors I used cardboard to line the cage then puppy pads on top and then we buy Eco comfy bed which is actually a horse bedding. It works really well and there was never any urine smells and the cardboard never got wet.
 
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