How do you keep your cages so clean?

[cherrytop108]

Bpatter,so all you use is a matress pad sewed to your fleece? Do you have thick fleece? Because the kind i have is really thin. and -- sorry -- How often do you channge your fleece bedding and how do you clean it?

[YayPiggies]

I keep my hay in a hay rack, but it's up to you. As for fleece, just make sure you tuck it in tight so when you sweep or vacuum it doesn't get all wrinkly.

[YayPiggies]

I wash my fleece once a week and change the hayloft once a week- I clean the fleece on Sunday and the loft on Tuesday.

[tictacgrrl]

There are a lot of ways to do fleece. I put down puppy pads or newspaper on the bottom, towels on top of that and fleece on the top. I have a little broom/dustpan combo I bought at Petco in the cat department. It works really well for sweeping poo and hay off of the fleece. I used to use a mini shop vac, but got tired of the tube getting clogged. The broom leaves behind a little more hay, but is a lot quicker and quieter.

I built my cage a little differently than most I see. I put the cubes inside of the coroplast so they sit on the fleece. I think it makes spot cleaning easier when I don't have to worry about the fleece getting pulled up. I don't have to worry about the pigs getting under it and chewing on the puppy pads either, which mine are known to do.

I try to clean out my cage ever 5 days. I pull the fleece up by the corners and set it aside. Then I put the dirty towels into a bag, put the fleece on top and take it outside. I shake the poop and hay off of the fleece and into my gardens. Then into the wash it goes. Dirty puppy pad or paper get tossed and I wipe the coroplast down.

[bpatters]

Cherrytop, I'd say my fleece is medium weight -- not the heaviest, but not flimsy, either. I got it on sale at a fabric store here. I got the mattress pads at a charity resale shop, and some were more worn than others. Where they were pretty thin, I just sewed another strip of mattress pad to that spot to make it thicker.

I change it once a week (went 9 days, one time), and haven't had any problems with odor. I do use a litter pan under my hay rack (with aspen, or fleece covered by aspen), and that gets changed out once halfway through the week. I've got corner litter pans in the big section of the cage. The kids scoop the poop before they go to school, and I sometimes do it again in the evening. I also made some extra pads that I put under the hideys where they sleep most often.

To clean it, I take all the stuff out of the cage, fold the corners and edges in toward the middle, and roll it up and take it out and shake it in the flower beds. If I've put hay down in the middle of the fleece that week, I whack it a few times on top of the bushes. Then I put it in net laundry bags ($1 each at the dollar store) and wash it.

[cherrytop108]

Shanx everyone!!! That was a huge help=] I just spent a lot of money on bedding, hay, and another pigloo though and so now i have to wait for a while until i spend more money=[