Keeping Long Haired Guinea Pigs In Wood Shavings

[chazandmandy]

Hi, I have two guinea pigs. One is a silkie cross and one is a sheba mini yak (have you guys heard of this breed?). Any ways, I keep them on fleece in the winter because it gets really cold here in Australia, but I can't keep them on fleece in the summer because it gets up to around 45 degrees celsius in the summer (it's currently summer in Aus). I've been putting them on newspapers and cardboard for about a year, maybe a couple of years now and it's just been getting too hard to clean-the paper and cardboard starts to break up and then the poo and wee gets to the bottom. I have wood shavings (because we have some chickens) and I wanted to start putting them on wood shavings. I have a few questions

1. so how do you go about this... do you put newspaper on first and then cover it with wood shavings?
2. Do you have problems with long hair guinea pigs in wood shavings, shavings getting matted in the fur?
3. how often do you clean your cage (I cleaned my cardboard and newspaper lined cages every 3 days ish)

 

[BlueBird]

I don't know about long haired Guineas but...

I put two layers down then a health layer of shavings. I only full clean once a week but my pigs are indoors in an open plan flat so I can't really have them anywhere near whiffy. Usually their kitchen gets changed twice a week and I take out the shavings in the toileting areas twice a week then the whole thing gets dumped out and disinfected at the weekend. But it all depends on how messy you piggies are.

If you are worried fleece is too hot but shavings sticking you their fur could you put a couple of plates/tiles in their cage with them in the fleece cage.?This saps all their excess heat out of them when they sit on it. Maybe a couple of ice packs sipped under their fleece (might not work with fleece liners though).

 

[Mother Hubbard]

In the summer...well not your kind of summer compared to here in the UK, but I give my long haired piggies a good haircut. It help to keeps them cooler and saves on bits getting stuck in their fur.

You want something absorbent underneath like puppy pads, I find newspaper doesn't work. Additionally I found woodshavings by their mere nature of the end of the shavings did stick to pigs and more often than not would take the moisture out of their feet. A hemp horse bedding which is designed to soak up all pee quickly would probably be better.