To those of you with free range sheds...

[primrose]

...What have you decided to cover the floor of the shed with? I have been using fleece in the whole thing, but changing it is a mammoth (unsustainable) task.
I now think that I might leave the fleece in their hutch (because that is fairly easy and I do love how clean and dry it is for them) and use newspaper and hay over the shed floor - I reckon it will need changing every 2-3 days - I'd like to do it everyday, but I'd go through ridiculous amounts of hay. We live in a small house, with an even smaller garden, so I don't have any room for storing a bale...?
What have other people chosen to use on the floors of their sheds?
x

 

[kate7590]

Mine used to be in a shed free range with a triple hutch against the back wall.
I had the entire floor lined with lino so its much easier to clean, then I used ecobed [cardboard squares] and hay

 

[lily 74]

Hi,

I have used all sorts of bedding!

Megazorb; worked out too expensive
woodshavings; filled bin bags up too quick, never had space in bins.
cardboard bedding; same as above.

I now use newspaper, a thin layer of megazorb or shavings and then top with hay. This does need changing every two days though.

I get hay for £7 for half a bale which last two weeks so not too bad

 

[Pandora]

at college this is how they house their piggies, they had sealed and painted the wooden floor and several inches up the walls with proper, hard wearing floor paint (i believe the same as what they used to paint the concrete floors in the rest of the animal unit, not completely aware of how safe that was if chewed, but it did its job well enough.)
This was covered in woodshavings as an absorbant layer, then covered over with either hay, or straw. Depending on what the student doing routine duties decided to put down.

When it was me, i'd rip everything out, trigene the floor, then re-bed with shavings and about half a bale of hay!
all this took about 20 minutes.
We were told to spot clean because of some 'sustainable development' rubbish, but i'm no half-job jill & if i was doing it, it got done right!
it was horrendous how they were left some times,
Spot cleaning a shed with 15+ guineas in it is a mammoth task anyway, there's no wonder most of the other students didn't even bother to do it (they'd act like they'd done it by cleaning one corner, leaving the rest of the soiled bedding to rot :/ )

If/when i can afford to move into housing like this, i'd do the same to be honest, but maybe with not quite so much hay.
For me the entire thing would work out to be more economical, as at the moment, i use half a bale of shavings and half a bale of hay dressing my 4*2 hutches once a week.
all my bedding goes into the green garden waste bins to be recycled into compost, college had their own mammoth compost pile in a field.

 

[Claire W]

I have Lino covering the shed floor followed by newspaper, wood shavings and hay. I spot clean daily and thoroughly clean once a week including mopping the floor and this works well for my four pigs

 

[christine]

Vinolay on the floor with dou -bed or hemcore on top. Boxes round the side lined with newspaper and hay and cleaned out every day,middle area cleaned out every third day.

 

[primrose]

I don't really want to use shavings on the floor - they're too expensive, too messy and, I totally agree with you Lily, they fill the dustbin up far too quickly. I'm going to get an offcut of Lino and then use newspaper and hay - my mum is on a mission to collect Metros from wherever she goes!

 

[lynzg]

My free-range piggies have a rubber mat (for horse stables) down for insulation, then an inch or so of Auboise bedding, and plenty hay in their sleeping areas. I wouldn't even consider changing how they are now because it works so well for me. And them.