How to kill bugs in Fleece bedding?

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lovelygirl

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Well today i will get home after being away for a week! and seeing as the piggies have got mites and i am sure when i bathed them i am sure i found two lice on cottonbud. So I have to wash all my new piggy pads and bedsheets at 90C to kill the little blighters! Worried about shrinkage does anyone know if there is anything i can treat the material with so i can wash it at a lower temperature..... HELP!:...
 
Mine are okay at that temperature too once they have had the initial shrinkage - not shrunk any further from a very hot wash.

I have been worried about lice - not because they are scratching all the time but because I find them so hard to identify. How did you identify them?
 
Well they had mites diagnosed at CCT by vedra so shampooing for three weeks to try and kill them back to normal levels, and I have seen lots of lice helping at the rescue so can just tell what dead lice look like and If in doubt i would always bathe them and they come to surface when they are dead and much easier to spot! :)) easier to spot on certain coloured piggies than others... rolleyes
 
Fi showed me when I was up there - little white things.

But most of mine are pale so it's hard to spot them.

I did spot them on Gypsy and Bessie and treated them - I have loads of lice and easy left in case I ever see them again.

Nasty little things.....
 
How about soaking the fleece in Virkon or some other kind of disinfectant, like chlrorox or the like? I know bugs die in the freezer too if you leave it there long enough (48 hours, I think). That's what we used to do with bike halmets and stuff that couldn't be washed if we got lice when we were little. You can do it with clothes that are eaten by moths too. Most of the stuff in a closet would not be happy at 90 degrees...
 
Good idea petra! Stick it in the freezer would be great apart from the fact i have a tiny freezer! I was wondering whether i could wash it in the same shampoo as the piggies?
 
You can wash the fleece in shampoo, but you would probably have to do it by hand. Washing machine powder/liquid is designed not to froth as much as ordinary soap/shampoo, if you put it in the machine you might get froth expoding out of the drawer!
 
Agree with ajb, once as a student I did a load with Fairy (because I ran out of powder). You wouldn't belive the insane amounts of froth it created!

How cold is it now where you live? My freezer isn't huge, but at -10 I could just put it on the balcony... If you're the cheeky kind you could bundle it up in double rubbish bags and ask a local shop to let you have it in their freezer room. I've done that sometimes (but with food when I used to run camps). Better not tell them what's in the bags though, say it's your wardrobe and you had moths :))
 
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I once put washing up liquid in a dishwasher machine! the whole kitchen was waist deep in suds! rolleyes

I was going to handwash it all once i have done the pigs on Friday
 
killing bugs

I was just wondering if soaking fleece in napisan or milton before washing would work? - it works in killing nasties in nappies and sterilises feeding euipment.
Jude
 
Think they napisan or milton are for killing bacteria rather than parasites?
 
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