Smell!

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BevyPig

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Hi! I'm new, literally signed up to ask you kind people this question because I'm at my wits end.

I have a neutered boar, Nigel, and his latest girlfriend Gracie. They live happily together on, until recently, fleece (with mattress toppers and towels underneath) in our living room in a homemade cage similar in size to a 4x2 c&c but made of wood with a correx inner.

Our issue is smell. They stink. I've had them on fleece for ages and the problem has never been this bad. We've tried everything! But they smell after just minutes of cleaning them out. Our latest experiment was to get rid of the fleece and use just mattress toppers, as they seemed to be less smelly while the fleece hummed. No use.
We used to wash the mattress toppers every other day. But my husband says they stink out the house if we dry them inside, and has insisted we put them in the shed. In this icy weather, they don't dry for days and I end up secretly bringing them in over night in order to clean the cage the next day. Which doesn't eradicate the smell anyway.

I'm at a loss. Back to woodshavings? Anyone got any other ideas we can try? I really don't want to rehome our little friends but its heading that way. My husband is very sensitive to smells and it really gets him down to come home from work to this. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Oh, we've also tried Cage Fresh granules under the mattress toppers, towels under it, care fresh bedding inside pig houses, cutting Gracie's hair (she's a long haired sweetie) and bathing both piggies as the vet suggested.

Thanks all!
 
Have you tried washing the fleece with vinegar? How about using small pads that can be changed frequently in high traffic areas: under houses, etc? What about getting a hay tray? I cut the side out of a plastic container(one that doesn't have too high side to begin) and sanded the edges, this helps as they eat the hay and pee and pooped while they eat, I clean mine out twice daily since I have 4 pigs. I use aspen in the hay tray and find it doesn't smell as bad as paper bedding when wet.
 
 
Just a thought - when my piggies have started smelling it's usually been the start of a urine infection. Have you noticed increased water consumption or any wetness on the piggies or any discolouration or squeaky wees? Worth checking if this has suddenly become an issue for you.
 
Fleece is a tricky thing.
It is wonderful but it also suffers over time from a build up of residue, so can get very smelly very quickly.

I think a good place to start would be with a proper clean of the fleece.
Start by cleaning your washing machine - run it empty with no detergent on a super hot cycle. When it gets to the washing part of the cycle, does it have foam in it? If so then you have a detergent build up in your machine, which is actually very common because most of us overuse detergent based on the manufactures very generous dosing suggestion.
Repeat this until your machine no longer produces any foam during the wash cycle.

Then put your fleece in (don't overload the machine) and wash with a very small amount of detergent a good slug of white vinegar, in the place you would usually put fabric conditioner.
If you fleece can handle it then wash at 60 degrees with an extra rinse.

Line drying outside is best, but also not possible a lot of the time, so over an airer indoors is the next best option. Drying away from direct heat (radiators) is optimal.

Then when you next clean the cage try to leave one or two 'dirty' items in there.
If they have a full cage clean then often they will feel the need to run around and scent mark everything, which won't make things wet, but will make them smelly very quickly. If the cage still smells like them, then they won't scent mark as much.

I really hope you get it sorted - fleece can be amazing, but like everything else it can also have it's problems.
 
Hi, We have a pair of boars in a c and c cage and a single boar in a second level above them. They are two years old. We have had the odd day here and there when they smell, usually as a result of heavy scent marking when they were teenagers. Overall though, smell has not been a problem. They are in our (large) kitchen and are not a problem. We use snowflake over newspaper and have also used aubiose over newspaper. We only do a full clean once a week. Straight after cleaning there is always some scent marking to literally mark their territory, but there is no discernible smell from this. The "upstairs boar" always wees in his corner tray so we clean that more often.
I know a lot of people on here use fleece, but I wouldn't change to it personally.
 
How modern is your machine? In my experience some of the newer machines are so good at conserving water that they don't do brilliantly on this sort of thing.

You can also sometimes in that scenario that the wee can "cook" in and smell. So a cool rinse cycle before you wash proper. And not loads of detergent, I always use much less than advised.
 
Thanks everyone. I might have to go back to woodshavings for a while and maybe try cleaning the mattress toppers a few times. Does anyone know where you can get pigloos with a built in floor? All the pigloos in pets at home now dont have a floor and I thought maybe using woodshavings inside pigloos might help contain the smell. But I'm still worried that its the actual mattress toppers that are smelly. I'll do woodshavings for a bit and do a good wash on the toppers with vinegar. Thanks! Any further advice is welcomed!
 
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