Cage cleaning advice

[Bubble64]

Hi. (Sorry if this is posted in the wrong category but I guess it kind of comes under housing). I have 4 boars in 2 separate cages. They are all on fleece bedding in C&C cages. I spot clean every day using a dust pan and brush. For bith cages this takes me about 40 minutes and then takes me about another 20 mins to clean litter trays, clean food bowls and clean water bottles etc. I put pee pads down on the fleece which definitely helps with spot cleaning because then on certain sections I can just pull up the pee pad and tip of crumbly poop but the whole process takes such a long time. Also, 2 of my boars aged 3 and 1 have extremely crumbly poop. It comes out of then orefectly healthy but when I come to spot clean, it has crumbled into a thousand pieces so the fleece is practically just poop powder. I can't cover the whole bottom of the cage in reusable pee pads as they are very expensive and I have to wash amd replace them every day due to the amount of pee on them. So I guess what I'm really asking is:
1) How long does it take for you to do daily spot cleans and what bedding and cage do you have/use?

2) Is there anything I could do to make spot cleaning quicker?

3) Is the crumbly poop thing normal and does anybody else experience this?

 

[AidaB]

Hi!
We have 2 boars who live as neighbours. They live in a divided CC home. I haven’t timed how long it takes me to clean up or spot clean.
Our two have fleece bedding. We have big bottom base pads, then smaller pads under favourite houses and favourite pee spots, which can be changed daily , sometimes twice daily, when wet. Poo pick up/collection happens whenever we walk past and stop to say hi to our boys, which makes it not quite so much by the end of the day.

We don’t usually use bowls- just scatter feed, is that something you have tried? It encourages the boys to go hunt for their food, offering an opportunity for enrichment.


At the beginning of the year we had a bonded pair of foster pigs staying with us & yes, it took me quite some time to sort out all 3 piggy homes. I was getting up earlier every morning before work, just to stay on top of everything.
At the time this also included medicine rounds(2 pigs)and a top up of recovery food, feed.
I couldn't do a big clean out on the same day for everyone, so would do one piggy home a day for 3 days.

I hope you find a routine that works for you,

 

[Piggies&buns]

3. Poop will crumble as it dries out. One of my cages gets like that but the other doesn’t. As long as the poops are healthy and normal when they come out, it’s fine.

1. It probably takes me 15 minutes for daily spot cleans on all cages.
That is: 2x5 c&c with a boar pair; a 2x4 c&c for a single boar; and my rabbit enclosure (a few litter trays within their 120sq ft enclosure).

I have newspaper, shavings and hay as bedding for all my animals and in the rabbit litter tray.
For the pigs - I scoop up wet bedding, wet hay, remove newspaper if necessary with my dustpan and brush and then replace and top it all up.
For the rabbits - I tip out the litter trays, wipe down and refill.
Then every 5-7 days it’s a full removal and refill of everything. That takes probably 40 minutes to do all three fully.

We don’t recommend, and I don’t use, any food bowls for anything (everything is scatter fed in hay) so there is no bowl cleaning to be done.

Water bottles have a spoon of rice added into them, shaken all around, washed, rinsed and refilled. A couple of minutes per bottle.

 

[Posyrose]

Like you I find having bath mats on top of the fleece I use as a liner means I can take the mats out and shake them into the bin. It makes it quicker for me. It takes about 15min to do one cage for 2 boys. Before that, just having the liner made it difficult for me. I'm disabled so it might take someone else who's fit and we'll less time.

 

[fluffysal]

Sounds disgusting but to a degree I use my hands to pick up poos. I have bath mats and pee pads on top of big fleece liners, I check and change these as needed. The scattered hay gets left where it is to a degree as long as it's dry and big fleeces get changed once a week. I do the bottom ones about 3 or 4 days after the top. When the old fleece is out the correx gets sprayed and wiped and left to dry while the boys get lap time. They enjoy "helping" me put the clean fleeces in.
My average daily time is about 15 min.