How to wash vetbed by hand?

[Smartypiggies]

Hi! I have two amazing guinea pigs and I've just switched to using vetbed as their bedding. I was wondering if anyone knows how to wash their vetbed by hand and what kind of washing detergent to use as my vetbed is way too big to fit into the washing machine. Thanks!

 

[Piggies&buns]

I have the same problem. I put mine in a huge tub of boiling hot water with some normal non bio detergent and a good glug of white vinegar, swish it around with the end of a broom handle and then leave it to sit. Rinse it out with more hot water and vinegar solution, rinse it out again and then hang it on the washing line to drip. It takes an age to dry. It’s an absolute nightmare when it won’t fit in the machine and this is by no means the best way of washing it but it has worked ok over the summer. I am going to cut mine into smaller pieces so that I can get it to fit in the machine for winter as it’ll obviously never dry outside. It’ll probably take several loads to get it all done. I only use it in one area for the reason of difficulty of washing it.

 

[Seven7]

I wash all my fleece linings by hand with detergent, rinse off, then soak them in vinegar water to kill the bacteria.

Mine use their hay pan as their bathrooms so the fleece portion don't get much pee, and I know this because I can see there is very little urine in their fleece liners and fleece pee pads. I wash the fleece pee pads every three days, and change and wash fleece liners every week.
Their hay pan or their "bathroom" get emptied every other day, and filled with hay over again. I put puppy pee pads on the bottom of the hay pan to collect pee so when they eat hay, it is not entirely soaked in their pee. I also top off hay often throughout the day. Mine are indoor piggies so I check on them routinely.

 

[piggieminder]

I cut my vet bed into sections for this reason. I use three pieces in my larger cages and as the piggies mainly pee in the two top corners I wash the top bit move the other two bits up and put a new bit at the bottom, by rotating it this way it cuts down the washing. Today I started making fleece liners to use when the weather is wet as 4 cage worths of vet bed is going to be too much to dry when it can't go outside!