Shelties on fleece

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i-love-pigs

i-love-pigs

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I am in the process of trying to change my boys onto fleece.

My single boar and the two teenage brothers seem to be doing fine, easy to sweep up the poos, not too noticable smell, dry, quite pleased.

However I changed my older boys, the aby and the sheltie onto fleece on Saturday and only the next morning Buttons, the sheltie was all wet around his nethers and his feet were wet. Is this because of his long flowing locks, I do trim him but he is still my hairiest pig. I had to bath him straight away and changed the fleece back (begrudgingly) to shavings and hay and he is still dry and happy today.

What did I do wrong? :{I used newspaper and double layered fleece same as in the other cages, the fleece was different, purely personal choice as we wanted them to have different colours.

My aby boy Scruffs has dry skin so it was this pair that I was particularly keen to get onto fleece because I read that shavings can dry out their skin.
Any suggestions, please?
 
could you swap to megazorb or aubiose if you can't manage to sort out the fleece situation
 
Was it brand new and unwashed fleece?

That can cause it too. It needs washing first no softner.
 
Lisajazz said:
Was it brand new and unwashed fleece?

That can cause it too. It needs washing first no softner.
Click to expand...

Oh, didn't wash itmallethead. Although I didn't wash the other new fleeces but perhaps Buttons is more susceptible to getting wet. I will wash it and give it another go. Thanks.rolleyes
 
When you first buy it, the fleece is not used to working with moisture. Washing it once or twice before the first use, without softner, helps a lot. It may take a few more washes before it works really well with the urine; mine has been washed dozens of times now and the urine goes through it immediately, and the fleece is dry as a bone even after 4 days in the cage!

It's also worth using towel underneath, instead of/as well as newspaper. I find towels pull the urine through the fleece straight away.

Fleece doesn't work for everyone and everypig, so give it another good go and see how you get on before you declare it a success or failure. :))
 
Thanks, I really want fleece to work for me esp for these two boys. I have it in the machine as we speak and will dry it then wash it again before trying it. If it doesn't work out I will have to try megazorb - not sure about a local supplier but will do a bit of hunting - as I do not want to keep them on shavings for their own good as I know Scruffs' skin is itchy.
I will also get some cheap towels and try that.
Thanks to everyone for their advice x>>

As a p.s. does anyone know of a guinea pig expert vet in the Telford area? My vets are ok with my other animals but my George was given some dental treatment under GA before he passed earlier this year and he never fully recovered (personally I think they took his teeth too short as he couldn't chew things up after). I have checked the sticky but none local.
 
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I found vet bed really good for my little long haired girl (she's my avatar), since moving her to vet bed her skin is much less sensitive and only her bottom needs to be trimmed. (in the piccy she has had a haircut). I moved her onto vet bed from megazorb.
 
I have no idea if there is a good vet near you, but have you tried calling Vedra at the CCT and asking her if there are rodentologists local to you? They would be able to carry out dental work without anesthetic and help out with all manner of problems.

www.britishassociationofrodentologists.co.uk/CCT.html

As an aside, or additional to what I wrote above, I have four shelties on fleece. They do great on it, they only ever get soggy when they sit in their hay-and-newspaper hay trays for too long. :)) Different things work for different pigs!
 
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