Great News And Questions

What do you use in your guinea pig's cage?

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1GuineaPig1

1GuineaPig1

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Great news: I told my mother about the C&C cage for Christmas thing (See the thread, "Please Help..." For details) and she managed to convince my dad! So now I am 99.9% sure that I am going to get a C&C cage from guineapigcages.com for Christmas!
Questions: I talked to my mother, and now we are considering switching to fleece instead of bedding. But I have a couple questions that I hope you may be able to answer. :)

  • How to do it; I know that you do it, my question is how. I know there are many different ways, so you can list as many as you want to.
  • The least time-consuming. I go to school every day, and my parents go to work, so there is no one home to change fleece all of the time. I also have homework and such.
  • The stench-eliminator. I have heard that using fleece is supposed to be better than bedding because it smells better. Partially because you have to clean it out a lot, but I don't mind cleaning the fleece out, say, twice a day.
  • What smells better? If you put towels under the fleece, or if you put fleece over the bedding? There is one person who did that (Come to think of it, that may have been on another forum) and they said it was cleaner and didn't have to change the bedding that much. Advice on how to go about putting the fleece over the bedding would be much appreciated.
Thank you for all replies, and I will post pictures of my cage as soon as I get it! :))
 
You'll love having a C&C but whether you use bedding or fleece is personal choice.
 
I'm currently using wood shavings, but I'm thinking of switching to fleece. There is always pieces of bedding on the floor in the room I keep my guinea pigs in, whereas I wouldn't have that problem with fleece. Fleece does have to be washed every couple of days compared to wood shavings that only need to be changed weekly. The nice thing about fleece is that it is reusable, but there's also the cost of washing it all the time.
I think they both take close to the same amount of time to change. Wood shavings have a woodsy smell when you put new bedding in, but I've also heard that fleece doesn't smell as bad.
I've never seen fleece over bedding before, but it sound like an interesting idea. You would still have to change the bedding weekly because that's what's absorbing the urine.
Hope this helped a little bit :)
 
We use woodshavings in our C&C we used fleece with our special needs piggy in the past.

You will need to change it every 3 days in my experience. We used to double it up and use towels underneath and poo pick daily.

Wash fleece several times before you use it this increases it's absorbency. Never use softener on it this will stop it's wicking away water ability. I wouldn't advise using it over bedding as it will stick to the fleece and be messy, towels underneath do a fine job.

Maybe try it and see how you feel...
 
Okay, and thank you! I am so looking forward to putting my piggies in a bigger, nicer cage. I may try fleece for a little while, but if it proves to not fit my schedule or more messy or smelly than bedding, I will switch back. Thanks for the advice! As usual, more replies are welcome too!
 
I don't have a C&C cage but mine live in a metal puppy pen in the garage. I use puppy pads and fleeces but these do need changing daily.

It works for me though!
 
The easiest thing to maintain by far that I've found is fitch. It comes in a big 20kg bag for about £18 (you can buy it on Amazon or straight from the supplier at http://www.fitchrecycling.co.uk/animal-bedding/fitch-pet-bedding.html and is super-absorbant, holds in smells and as it's white, you can just pick out the clumpy wet bits as and when. When it comes to changing, as long as you have newspaper and/or puppy pads underneath you can just roll the whole lot up and stick it straight in the bin :)
 
I use puppy pads then a double towel layer or absorbent mattress topper then fleece. I also have a little hand vacuum to skip them off daily (i'm a teacher so time is of the essence!) and because mine have an extra run downstairs that they're in from 7am-6pm the cage can go a whole week between washes-I give them a full clean at the weekend. I also have a little corner litter tray that I change daily, as they like to pee there. So far it's working well and is a real time saver!
Also I'd strongly suggest getting your grids from Costco/Walmart/Target as it's much cheaper :)
 
We find fleece to be great, but other people have had different experiences of it.
I go to school too.
Fleece IMO is best with towels underneath, they can be used time and time again, you would need a few layers of towels and a layer of fleece. Fleece needs to be washed at least three times before introducing to the cage, because it needs to wick, meaning the water will sink through and not leave a wet topping. It has to be changed every three or four days, (or you may find easier, a pooping corner which has an extra bit of fleece on), washing at 60 degrees, no fabric softener, and with a cap full of white vinegar. A note about the fabric softener; if you use this, it will stop the fleece from wicking. So a non-bio detergent is best. If fleece is maintained properly, it will not smell. It needs to be spot cleaned (removing poops with brush or Hoover) at least once a day. I spot clean mine twice a day. So fleece hay doesn't clog up your machine, you may want to buy horse bags, which you put the fleece in, so hay cannot escape into the machine. And to finish with, a lint roller, is useful to pull off loose hairs once washed. Or pop some rubber gloves on and spread your hand against the fleece.
 
Thanks for the information, @Chief Guinea Pig! And everyone else, too. Do you think it would be okay if I got fleece and put towels under it in my new cage, then spot-cleaned when I get home from school, and before I go to bed, and then gave it a full clean and washed the fleece and towels once a week? I really want to do fleece, and I'd be willing to do the work. Two more questions
1. Can you wash the towels with the white vinegar too, and do you just use the vinegar? Or do you need non-fabric softener detergent also?
2. Are there any other things besides towels that you can put fleece over that will still do the job?
Excuse me if I am asking silly questions, I didn't even know you could use fleece in a guinea pig cage before I got on this forum. :)
 
1GuineaPig1 said:
Thanks for the information, @Chief Guinea Pig! And everyone else, too. Do you think it would be okay if I got fleece and put towels under it in my new cage, then spot-cleaned when I get home from school, and before I go to bed, and then gave it a full clean and washed the fleece and towels once a week? I really want to do fleece, and I'd be willing to do the work. Two more questions
1. Can you wash the towels with the white vinegar too, and do you just use the vinegar? Or do you need non-fabric softener detergent also?
2. Are there any other things besides towels that you can put fleece over that will still do the job?
Excuse me if I am asking silly questions, I didn't even know you could use fleece in a guinea pig cage before I got on this forum. :)
Click to expand...
Yes, that routine sounds ok.
Towels and fleece should be washed with white vinegar, AND non bio detergent! You can't forget the detergent as well.
You can use puppy pads, incontinence pads etc, but cannot recommend them as I haven't used them.
 
I have fleece cage liners in my cages. AS they have an absorbent mid layer, they do not need anything underneath. When one side gets dirty (which takes a long time with only 2 pigs) I can just turn it over. I sweep up loose hay and poops at least once a day and vacuum once a week. I have one spare liner, so I can wash one and use the spare to replace it.
I use Dettoll laundry cleanser with the washing liquid to kill bacteria.
 
@7squeakers, just wondering, I've heard a lot about fleece cage liners, but I don't really know what they are. Again, please excuse me if I am asking silly questions. Either way, can't wait until Christmas! :))
 
In addition, can you dry the fleece in a dryer, or do you need to hang it up to dry?
 
I use fleece with the old cloth nappies from my kids underneath and puppy pads under that. I find 3 days is long enough between changes at the moment. It really doesn't take long to spot clean and I do it twice a day. We all have to be out of the house by 8am for work/ school so I got into a routine pretty quickly! I spot clean when I feed in the morning, so I open the cage, quickly pick up poo and hay on the fleece and then collect up their bowls and water bottles to clean and re-fill, it takes 15 mins max to do that, chop their veg and put bowls and bottles back . They tend to be in the run for evening veg time so I do a clean up before I put them back in.

I use Fitch bedding when they are in the outdoor hutch and I find the indoor fleece quicker and easier to spot clean. They do have a corner toilet for hay which has Fitch under the hay in the indoor cage.

I have ordered some cage liners, just waiting for them to arrive so I hope they will last a couple of days longer before needing washing.
 
1GuineaPig1 said:
In addition, can you dry the fleece in a dryer, or do you need to hang it up to dry?
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Fleece doesn't need to be dried. When I take mine out of the machine after a wash, it is virtually dry already. Putting it on the drying rack or outside will finish it off if it's a bit damp.
 
I tried fleece for 2 months i have now gone back to fitch. I found freece alot of hard work and very expensive. I pay £5.00 a week for my electricity. When useing fleece my electric was £9.00 because of boil washing bedding every 2 days. That's £20:00 a month Fitch is only £17:00 and lasts about 3 months.
 
Hi everyone!

I use fleece in my c&c cage and have made extra pads to go in the areas where the piggies tend to pee and poop more. That way I can easily replace the smaller pads and the main liner doesn't need replacing quite so soon. I put the pads into an old pillowcase to wash and I have a larger laundry bag for the cage liner itself. I don't tumble dry the liners and they seem to dry in no time at all.

I made all my own liners etc and used this thread for instructions. It's a fab tutorial!

http://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/how-to-make-a-cage-liner-with-pics.65091/

I brush out the poops and any excess hair twice a day, I actually enjoy doing this as it's an excuse to spend a bit more time with the piggies! Since moving over to fleece my piggies absolutely LOVE it & seem to be much happier. They run about a lot more and general seem more comfortable. I was really pessimistic about whether fleece would work for me but I haven't found it any more work than any of the other bedding.
 
@sport_billy dont you find it harder to clean wood shavings from a big candc set up? I use Fitch in our commercial cage where I can carry the base to the bin and dump it out when cleaning and fleece in our large candc set up.

I use a fleece liner (with zorb inner), doubled up towels and then puppy pads. I sweep up poop twice a day and do a full cage clean twice a week. It takes me 20 minutes to do a full clean, including disinfectant spraying and wiping but not including the time the stuff is in the washing machine.
 
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