Overwhelmed with laundry!

4boipigs

4boipigs

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I'm curious how often those with fleece do their laundry. Since I've evolved to having 4 separated boars, the laundry is endless. It was so much better when I had paired boys in 2 cages. Now I have to give each boy his own set of fleece and potty pads, so at any time I have 4 fleece liners in use (1 per pig), along with 3 washable potty pads for their kitchen/hay (one is shared between cages), and 8 potty pads that go under their hides (2 hides per cage).

I must be doing laundry for them twice a week. I feel like I never have enough bedding too! I'm always running out of potty pads and the pads I use for their kitchen. I've purchased more bedding for them at least 3 times this year. My sister is starting to joke that all I do is wash guinea pig bedding. Each time I buy more bedding, I think to myself 'if I have more bedding, I can cut down on how often I wash', but this is just not happening.
 
Laundry is a guarantee in life at my house. If your not washing/drying it, you must be folding it! We're a family of five with four piggies; two of our own and currently two foster boys. I do big clean out twice a week so everything gets washed. I end up with two loads on big clean out day. Regular cleaning days I just change out all of the potty pads and wash them daily. I had thought about making more fleece liners, but I would still do their laundry daily as it is the smell of stinky laundry that gets me. I may make more fleece liners and potty pads as I would like a few extra, but it wouldn't change how often I wash everything.
 
I know how you feel! I have 4 cages at the moment (was 5) and I wash bedding everyday just to keep up. I have been ill recently and missed some days, I had 2 big piles to wash waiting in the greenhouse. The weather has been so bad I can't get it dry, I feel like I'm drowning under piggy fleece! I'm still not well so the only thing I'm doing is cleaning the cages, putting the wash on and putting my feet up again as I run out of energy. As soon as we get a good drying day I need to do 2 or 3 loads at once to catch up. The trouble is the more bedding you have you still can't wash more in one load because of the load size limits on the machine.
 
i have four cages and 11 piggies.i use disposable bedding in two cages,the wettest piggies.the other two i use fleece.i put puppy pads on the top for hay piles,that seems to work for me !its trying to dry all the washing that forced me to change some to disposable bedding.
 
Goodness.... I thought my washing of two loads a week was rather a lot for two piggies but those of you with so many piggies must feel as though all you're ever doing is washing and drying fleece....I guess that's real devotion!
My previous piggy, Bear who was rather ill was having bedding washed every day and that was a challenge. As he wasn't running on the floor anymore, he was spending all his time in his c&c but I wanted him to be as clean as possible.
Felt like a real treat to have my two new boys and have less washing 😄
 
I only have 3 piggies but I wash every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. I only do 2 loads at a time though because I only have one room to have it hang to dry. I don't have a spin dryer, so I have to wait at least 2 days for the bigger size fleece to dry (this is one of the reasons why I hate autumn and winter coz I can't hang washing outside). Although I do an extra spin to drain as much liquid from the washing as it can. All the small ones like lap pads, pee pads, bed inserts dries in a day. Monday is a big washing day for me coz I wash all mine and hubby's laundry too. Friday and Sunday are for occasional washing days. 😂😂
 
I do once a week because I keep the bedroom areas as Back-2-Nature topped with hay and the odd little cut-up bit of fleece which drains straight into the B2N. These are just switched out each day and left on the roof of the cage to dry out which happens pretty quick. This means the massive night-time puddles are absorbed by the B2N bedding or we'd have to changes fleeces every day! The fleeces are in the walking around areas so they last quite a while.

I have a couple of big fleeces and a few more mediums and a couple of little ones together with snuggle tunnels etc. I do once a week because of hair in the machine. There's a rota of what washing on what day finishing on Friday night with school uniform (dark colours) and any jumpers which are the worst for catching every strand of hay and hair! Piggy washing on Blitz day at the weekend. Then cotton bath towels which dredge out the machine but don't cling to the piggy debris. Then some sort of sheet/pillowcases and we're good to go for the normal clothes.

If it rains I peg the dirty fleeces out on the line for nature's pre-wash!
 
Hi I feel your pain too I have three piggies a child and two dogs so the washing mounts up I do our washing me and my child wash the machine then do piggies and if need to wash dog stuff I wash there stuff then a quick clean on the washing machine lol
 
Just had a thought, does everything come out of the wash smelling fresh?

I've had some trouble with vetbed coming out of the wash still a bit smelly and then becoming horrid again almost immediately. I haven't perfected my new routine yet, but my current theory is that the problem was detergent.
 
Mine does. I use free and clear detergent. I fill the fabric softener compartment with white vinegar and a but more on top of the laundry. I do an extra rinse on each load. Good to go.
 
poggle said:
Just had a thought, does everything come out of the wash smelling fresh?
Click to expand...

I never have an issue with smell. You could try adding some vinegar to the load and see if that helps. I have to put my washer on 'heavy duty' and it takes at least an hour to wash, not sure if that makes a difference in smell also!
 
Ah that's a shame (kind of), I don't have an issue with smell any more but wondered if that might have been increasing the amount of laundry for you 🙂
 
Piggy laundry and cage cleaning is a daily exercise in this house; laundry is running pretty much all day long. As soon as I have worked my way across the piggy room, the other end is ready for a clean again.

The trickiest bit is to work in the occasional human laundry pile before hub is running out of underpants.
 
We wash fleece and towels once a week. As long as there are enough towels, the surface isn't damp on their feet, and they don't care if it smells! To keep down the smell for us, we keep a layer of hay over the fleece. It really does help. Also, daily removal of poops is needed to keep the smell down.

Having said that, we've recently switched to keeping them on vinyl flooring with strategically placed pee pads, for various reasons, but one was to reduce the amount of laundry. The hope is that the pee pads will only need washed weekly, but even if that doesn't work out, they are much smaller than the full fleece liner and towels.
 
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