Best Compostable Bedding

[Throwa]

Morning all.

We have 4 lovely female GPs who live inside on shavings when they're not zooming round outside and scaring the cat. As you can imagine 4 of the things produce a lot of wee and poo, hence a lot of mucking out to keep the smell down and the GPs comfortable.

What is the best compostable bedding for them? Shavings don't break down well in the compost bins and our green waste recycling doesn't technically take animal waste.

I have considered fleece, and have had two kids in washable nappies in the past (my washing machine is well used to poo!) but we only have time to muck out once a day whereas fleece needs poo picking at more regular intervals?

Thanks for advice in advance.

 

[Crystella]

I've just started mine out on fleece and just by doing the poop patrol in the morning and evening is fine. Remember to pop pee pad's around where they do it most should help on the smell (if there is any smell). By cleaning out the litter/hay tray daily, also helps cut down on poo picking as they will do their business in there.

 

[GPcrazy]

spot cleaning on fleece is really quick. I've never used wood shavings but I would imagine that trying to pick out from that would be rather time consuming.
One big fleece liner covering the base of the cage, plus a few small piddle pads where they lie most often (I have one under each house, and one next to the litter tray) works really well. The main liner only needs to be changed once a week (or at the most twice a week, but generally once is fine), and the piddle pads can be replaced every second or third day. If you incorporate a litter tray then they do the majority of their business in there and mucking that out would be the most time consuming (3-5 min) and can be done once a day.

My piggies poo mostly in the litter tray and in their houses, so in the morning when I go to put their pellets down, I lift each house, carefully pick up the piddle pad, tip the poos out into a bin next to the cage, and put the piddle pad down again and house on top. It takes all of 30 seconds per pad. Same in the evenings. Once a day you can pick up the other poos that are scattered around.
Wees are almost all in the litter tray, and those that aren't are almost all on the piddle pads which you can replace as necessary (generally every second or third day, although feel daily to make sure they're not wet).

The poos that I tip into the bin next to their cage, I dump into the compost bin.
In the litter tray I use 1/3 of a bath towel folded to fit the tray (cat litter tray), and then I put their hay in that. I top the hay up as needed. They tend to pull some of it over the corner they wee in so they're never left standing on wet toweling. The hay shakes off toweling really easily (much easier than off fleece).