Cardboard VS Chloroplast

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PepperPig

PepperPig

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Hello everyone,
I am getting a new guinea pig cage soon :<> and I want to know if I can use cardboard to line the cage instead of chloroplast. Here's the cage conditions.

Two guinea pigs living inside the cage.
I am going to line it with towels and then a sheet of fleece overtop.

I hope I can get some feedback and see if cardboard would "fit the bill!"
Thanks,
PepperPig
 
tabelmabel said:
won't your cardboard just go soggy? I can.t see how that could work at all.
Click to expand...

Exactly what i thought - correx can be wiped down should it get wet, with cardboard the urine/water would just be absorbed so within a couple of days it would need replacing as it would start to smell awful - a very expensive C&C base method...it just wouldn't work at all!

On the flip side, i should imagine the piggies would have a wonderful time eating away at their cage :)) if my piggies cardboard boxes are anything to go by, it wouldn't last the week :))
 
No, cardboard wouldn't work, it has to be waterproof.

While you are saving up for the plastic (I bought 4 sheets that were 2'x3' at Home Depot and it cost about thrity six dollars) there are some other options.

If the table you are setting the cage on is several inches wider than the grids, you can just lay a flat liner down to protect the table, like a tarp, or shower curtain, or even a large plastic trash bag, one of those heavy duty black ones, cut so it fits under the cage with no seams so the urine can't leak through. Or if you have access to some, you can use some vinyl floor covering that was left over when someone put new floor in somewhere? Then you put the towels and fleece down, and set the cage on it so that it holds down all that and the layers of fleece and plastic extend outside of the bottom of the cage. Does that make sense? You won't have the sides to keep them from scattering hay and bedding about, but you could probably use cardboard on the outside of the grids as a temporary 6" or 8" tall border to keep that stuff from falling out of the cage and onto the floor.

You do have to make sure you anchor the grids somehow to the table so the piggies don't push the grids off the side and create a space they can fall off the table. Maybe put some bricks around the outside of the grids so they can't shift.

I've seen people do this on this board, usually on the floor and not a table because of the shifting hazard I mentioned...but I bet I could find a picture if you need one to explain it.
 
Thank you all for commenting...now I look on the posts and think, "Wow, that was a really silly question to ask!" I have gotten my C&C cage and my pigs love it...and the covering of it is actually a waterproof vinyl which I use fleece in as their bedding.
 
Just to add though that I use cardboard to line the bottom and sides of my outdoor run that I have inside and it works fine. I just line our wooden floor first with puppy pads, then newspaper and cardboard to protect it an then another layer of puppy pads and hen newspaper. I hav to say it works really well and the cardboard hasn't got damp at all. It work w ell for us as I didn't want to buy another indoor cage as the piggys will be going outside in spring x
 
image-8_zpsa7a4ff18.jpg


I'm not sure if this piccy will work but I did want to show that cardboard can work as a temporary housing solution.
 
Oh thank you pepper! And I cleaned this out completely at the weekend and the cardboard is dry as dry, I'm really happy with it ^)
 
Yay that's awesome! My pigs would probably go crazy and chew it all up, as they love to do. {:|
 
great cage I have mine on a laminate floor then ground sheet then puppy pads then fleece then towels and fleece where they pee They also have litter trays.
 
I think cardboard works really well but everyone is different
 
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