Do I need to use wood shavings?

[weepweeps]

Hi all. I’ve been using newspaper and then wood shavings in the boys hutch since I got them. With hay on top. They live in my garage if that makes a difference. At the moment they are in my house while Pepper recovers from a tooth root abscess operation. The vet said not to use wood shavings in case they get into the wound. So they are currently on a water proof blanket with a layer of newspaper then hay on top.

My question is once they go back into the garage will this work out ok too? Leave off the wood shavings?

 

[LeeLee_:)]

Yeah, a lot of wood shavings can be bad for guinea pigs. Be sure that you never use cedar wood or pine wood for them, it can be really bad for them. It's a lot better for them if you just use paper bedding and a heck ton better for them to use fleece liners. In my opinion I think the blanket would probably be fine, especially if it's waterproof, as long as you get some paper bedding soon, but I'm not an expert so I would definitely check with your vet or someone more experienced than me before making any final decisions.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Depends on what happens in your garage in winter and what kind of waterproof blanket you mean — fabric beddings aren’t recommended to be used outside in winter - I certainly can’t use them in my insulated shed.

You can use just newspaper and top with hay but you would need to make sure wet sheets of newspaper are removed daily because newspaper alone isn’t particularly absorbent.
You could always use the shavings under the newspaper to increase absorbency or use a different type of absorbent disposable bedding (my personal favourite being megazorb (now that I can’t reliably get aubiose).

 

[weepweeps]

It’s a very thin, waterproof bed under sheet. Not a fleece blanket.

 

[Piggies&buns]

It might be ok then if it’s just a waterproof layer, but as you suggest, you would need the something absorbent on top. Newspaper alone (then the hay on top) would be fine as long as you replace wet papers daily.