Thinking Of Changing From Aubiose To Fleece - Need Convincing Please!

Status
Not open for further replies.
4pigs&counting

4pigs&counting

Junior Guinea Pig
Joined
Dec 11, 2016
Messages
246
Reaction score
181
Points
330
Location
South West UK
Since my piggies arrived I have been using Aubiose bedding which has been great. However, I have found that I need to have a really deep layer for it to work properly and am therefore getting through it quite quickly. I like the idea of moving to fleece but buying ready made liners etc. will be quite a big initial expense...do I take the plunge and make the change (big outlay), or stick with the Aubiose (not so expensive but an ongoing expense)?! Thanks for any thoughts! :)
 
I can't big up fleece liners enough, they are so easy to put in the cage, sweep out and wash. Your have to have spare time to sweep out the cage at least twice a day and then take into account the extra washing you will be doing. Still, so much fun. It feels cleaner, no bits around the house from liners, funky colours too! Love my liners and would never go back.
 
I made my own liners. It really is soooo easy. Just a couple of bits of fleece and an inner (zorb, mattress protector in cotton, towel, incontinence bed sheet or something else that I havent thought of) in the middle. Sew round the edges and do another round of sewing about an inch in (I didnt do that and mine are fine).

It is great fun chosing lovely fleece patterns.

If you do buy liners each one costs about the same as a bag of aubiose so they will soon pay for themselves. I put little mats (mini cage liners) under hidies and on any areas where they wee.

I also have a 32litre underbed storage box with hemparade (from zooplus) and HAY HAY HAY. They do most of their wees in it, bless them.

Jingle wants you to know that vet bed makes lovely mats;

351bv3k.jpg


Mistletoe says that microfibre mats are good too;

2urxwn8.jpg


I love it when its fleece change over day. I am making more little mats for under their hidey houses and look forward to choosing which colours to put where.
 
flowerfairy said:
I made my own liners. It really is soooo easy. Just a couple of bits of fleece and an inner (zorb, mattress protector in cotton, towel, incontinence bed sheet or something else that I havent thought of) in the middle. Sew round the edges and do another round of sewing about an inch in (I didnt do that and mine are fine).

It is great fun chosing lovely fleece patterns.

If you do buy liners each one costs about the same as a bag of aubiose so they will soon pay for themselves. I put little mats (mini cage liners) under hidies and on any areas where they wee.

I also have a 32litre underbed storage box with hemparade (from zooplus) and HAY HAY HAY. They do most of their wees in it, bless them.

Jingle wants you to know that vet bed makes lovely mats;

351bv3k.jpg


Mistletoe says that microfibre mats are good too;

2urxwn8.jpg


I love it when its fleece change over day. I am making more little mats for under their hidey houses and look forward to choosing which colours to put where.
Click to expand...
Oh what beautiful piggies
 
That's great, thank you! Lovely pics by the way. A good idea about making my own - a quick (possibly silly!) question about the inners - are they removable/do they need replacing, or do you sew them in as part of the liner (permanent)?
 
PS - my boys are sooooo messy...seem to wee everywhere and anywhere! - how often do you do a full clear out/wash of the liners?
 
I can't convince you as I went from fleece liners to aubiose lol
 
I went from sawdust to liners and it's like night and day, best thing I ever did. Makes spot cleaning ridiculously quick and easy, less smell, looks cleaner. I wash the liner every 4-5 days but they come out beautiful and almost dry ready for the next use. I honestly don't think you will regret it. I went to ziggys piggies and they are just perfect
 
@Lady Kelly - eek, a seed of doubt in my mind now! I am just a bit wary of buying the liners and then not getting on with them. I think I may try to make my own to test the idea and see how I get on. It's so easy to just keep buying more and more different bits and bobs...I've not yet got to the stage of being efficient with the cleaning routines and the storage of all of the piggy paraphernalia - I'm finding there's rather a lot to learn!
 
I went from wood shavings to fleece to vetbed. Before I went to the expence of buying vetbed I used puppypads topped with newspaper topped with a cheap fleece blanket. This gave me an idea of what using fleece would be like. Afterwards you can keep it as a blanket or cut it up and make liners out of it. If you don't like it as a bedding you've not spent too much. I still use vetbed but have also made my own liners with fleece blankets and a wadding middle which I use if all the vet bed is in the wash.
 
threepigs said:
That's great, thank you! Lovely pics by the way. A good idea about making my own - a quick (possibly silly!) question about the inners - are they removable/do they need replacing, or do you sew them in as part of the liner (permanent)?
Click to expand...

The fleece inner fleece are all sewn together like a sandwhich. There are many wonderful youtube videos about it. When i get my darling lovely pretty wonderful awesome guinea pigs a new and bigger set up i will make two smaller liners to make changing and washing them easier. I wash mine every few days.
 
Last edited:
threepigs said:
@Lady Kelly - eek, a seed of doubt in my mind now! I am just a bit wary of buying the liners and then not getting on with them. I think I may try to make my own to test the idea and see how I get on. It's so easy to just keep buying more and more different bits and bobs...I've not yet got to the stage of being efficient with the cleaning routines and the storage of all of the piggy paraphernalia - I'm finding there's rather a lot to learn!
Click to expand...

I just found fleece got wetter quicker and started to smell a lot quicker. I found washing it a faff as well
 
I love fleece... when i first got my piggies i used carefresh and spent £30 in 2 weeks.... soon switched to fleece and the initial outlay was costly - mainly due to discovering all the lovely fleece out there - but saved so much money in the long run ! I make my own liners etc as i can sew .. i use waterproof incontinence bed sheets as my inner layer.. works really well..
 
What about having a go with a cheap fleece blanket?

I have fleece liners (from Ziggys piggies), and love them. To start with though, I just used a cheap fleece from IKEA (£2, I think), with some old towels underneath, and a layer of newspaper under that. It was more of a faff to change and wash, but gave me a good idea of what it was like to use fleece.
 
I would never use anything but fleece and vet bed. You could try using separate pieces, so fleece on top and absorbing layer like towel on the bottom to start with before going for liners. It would be a lot cheaper for a trial run.

Sweep poos with a dust pan and brush when needed, you can put extra pads on usual wee spots and under bottles and get them (fairly) litter trained. My girls do most their toilet habits in their hay/litter trays (cat litter tray with magic pine pellets and hay on top) which makes cleaning a whole lot easier.
 
i have 6 cages so found washing all fleece liners a faff this time of year but ive recently been using Aubiose in two grids of the cage with piles of hay and a 4x2 liner in the other half with vet bed under their hidies and this seems to work well.most of the mess stays in the Auboise and hay section.
 
I use fleece and fleece pee pads. I love both as it keeps the piggies cage and bedding area dry. I was using puppy pads and a towel but was finding it was getting wet under the their hideys but have switched to washable incontinence pads and vet bed things are now alot drier. I don't really mind all the fleece washing though as I do piggy washing twice a week but it's something to consider if you are switching to fleece. I did read that Auboise can be composted if you're into gardening.

Question for anybody though...would you put the puppy pads down on the bottom before the towel and fleece or towel first the puppy pads and fleece. I have been putting the towel down first and then puppy pads then fleece and obviously I have been doing something wrong because I have been getting wet beds the last couple of weeks before switching to the vet bed and incontinence pads.
 
I use 100% topped matteress potecters as the bottom layer then fleece on top. I don't sew them together as you can tumble dry the fleece but not the protectors. The protectors will shrink if you dry in the tumble dryers. I've never looked back after using fleece.
 
I tried out many kinds of disposable bedding before switching to fleece. I use a fleece blanket with a towel underneath. I used to put newspaper under that but found it unnecessary in the end. I made extra pads for the heavy pee area using fleece sewn onto a piece of toddler mattress protector. Initial cost for a 4x2 c&c cage was less than 50 Euros compared to 19 Euros per bag of bedding. I have been using it for about 11 months. (I already had mattress protector) I change the pad daily and change whole cage every 2-5 days, depending on how much time they have outside in the run. They also have a plastic litter tray and 2 beds, lined with newspaper and hay, which get changed once daily.

The best thing I bought was a large horse laundry bag from Amazon, for washing piggy laundry in the machine. Not a single stray hair or piece of hay gets in the machine - brilliant! I have 3 changes of bedding and do 1 wash at 60 degrees per week.

Only disadvantage of fleece is that I can smell the pee a bit more than the recycled paper disposable bedding.
 
One tip with using auboise is that you find pockets of used bedding, and of course it's meant to do that. So like equine clean out, I sweep off the good clean bedding and am left with the pockets of dirty auboise. Like using a equine fork to pick up the dirty stuff and leave the other to the side, spray - clean down and dry and add more auboise. That way if you are trying to save on bedding costs you are not throwing away un-dirty auboise.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top