New Fleece- smells so bad

[Hbecooper]

So i switched to fleece as our cavy expert is highly allergic to wood so makes things easier. I have one old neutered boar and 2 teen girls and have had the fleece down for 24hra and it stinks, its a real sweet smelling wee smell, never noticed it before not even in heavily soiled shavings. Any ideas why or what i can do to help it. They are proper fleece liners.

Any helo.would be great thanks

 

[Betsy]

Don't use fleece as mine are outside pigs so the only thing I can think of is did you wick them before popping them in the cage ? I have fleece pee pads for some of my hideys and I wicked them before using and they don't smell after 2 or 3 days.

 

[eileen]

i agree with Betsy,maybe you need to wash your liners 3 times,do not use any fabric conditioner in the wash,it stops the fleece from wicking.if i have new liners ,i place puppy pads under the liner,change every four days ,until the liner has got to its full potential to absorb moisture !i use fleece liners in my hutches in the warmer weather .i shake the liner in the garden to remove any debrie.

 

[Seven7]

I bought 150 puppy pee pads to put under my new fleece liner for Lara. I change the puppy pee pad so there is no issue with smell.
I am considering fleece liner for my boy Finn as well seeing that fleece liner is working well for Lara. Picking up her poop is a breeze.
My boy always had Carefree bedding so I hope he is ok with changing to fleece liner.

 

[Hbecooper]

The liners are new and already wicked but ill wash them more and see if that helps. The pee doesnt go through the liner aa ita absorbant enough. I'm going to try and contain their eating area with hay etc to encourage weeing only in that area. Thanks

 

[Swissgreys]

I would say give it some time.
Depending on the make up of your herd, and how hormaonal everyone is feeling, you might find it was simply a bit of a 'pee fest' to make their new liner smell like 'them'.
I find if I do a full cage clean (replace everything with fresh fleece) then the piggies can often go a bit ott with scent marking.
This usually dies down after 24 hours.
Ideally I try to only replace the liner, and leave beds and pee pads until another day. Then switch beds and pee pads, but leave the liner.
This does seem to reduce the manic scent marking.
Sometimes in an effort to make everything fresh and clean we inadvertantly make it worse, becasue the piggies prefer things that smell familiar.

 

[Hbecooper]

Thank you, thatnis a good idea actually to do the pads etc seperately i may give that go and see how it is. Thank you x

 

[Seven7]

My a boy and a girl have seperate cages so they pee exclusively on certain areas of their cages. When I look at the puppy pee pad that lies on the very bottom, I can see exactly where they pee the most.
I put small fleece pee pad on top of the fleece liner, set on the upper most part. So I change this small fleece pee pad often then smell isn't as bad.