Has Anyone Used Cotton Liners?

[luckyandsammy]

Hi, Sorry for another cage liner post. I've been experimenting a lot with cage liners recently.
I was just wondering if anyone has used anything other than fleece for a liner? I noticed that a lot of people make cotton liners for hedgehogs and I was wondering how that works.

I also had some fleece delivered today and I'm very excited to start making a liner but I don't know what to put inside.
I made two liners a couple of weeks ago and I put 50% cotton & 50% bamboo wadding in one and 80% cotton and 20% polyester in the other and they work quite well but I would like something that doesn't smell as quickly.
I have to change the cage every other day right now which gets a bit annoying. When I used fleece with towels I had to change it every 2-3 days.

What if I put a big towel inside the liner? Would it be too heavy?

I don't want to use zorb because it's very expensive.

I would prefer not to use anything under the liner.

 

[Guinea Mum]

Cotton mattress protector with fleece on top. Cotton stays wet and the fleece is a dry layer for comfort.

A cotton towel under fleece works well, but you already tried that? What do you mean by inside the liner, as apposed to under the fleece?

 

[luckyandsammy]

Isn't that very similar to wadding @Guinea Mum ?

Yes I used to use a few layers of towels under a fleece blanket but it takes a while to put it all in and it hurts my back because the guinea pig cage is very deep. It's a lot easier to take out a liner and put a clean one in.

Right now the liners are:

Anti pill fleece
80% cotton 20% polyester wadding
Cheap fleece

And the other one is

Cheap fleece
50% cotton 50% bamboo wadding
Cheap fleece

I also have another one I bought which is anti pill fleece on top and bottom with 80% cotton 20% polyester wadding inside.

They all get smelly very quickly which is why I think cotton wadding might not be the best thing to put in.

 

[flowerfairy]

Wadding isnt especially absorbent. I use zorb (I know what you mean about the expense) and a mattress protector (two layers) both of which are great.

I have used an incontinence pad as a middle in between two fleece layers but find it rather bulky.

A lot of people do use towel in the middle of two fleece layers and say that it works well.

 

[Kylie80]

I have been experimenting with different materials to put inside my liners too and find like @flowerfairy said the incontinence pads are bulky and I will not use them again as I find them hard to work with. I eventually found those "as seen on tv" chamois's to be the best so far. They are ment to hold 10x its weight in liquid.

 

[rome_italy]

I am not sure of understanding what you would like to experiment, but what's about using only fleece and underneath it only newspapers? they absorb perfectly and the fleece remains dry. When my piggies are free in the kitchen for their "floor time" (4-5 hours) I use old cotton towels (into their little houses) and underneath them there is always the usual newspaper. It works as well, but cotton is never dry of course. Anyway there is no smell at all in the air. The use of newspapers is good also for monitoring the colour and the feature of the urine; you can realise if it looks clear, if it has calcium residue; the fleece does not allow a good check, but the paper can be taken and shown also to the vet.