Bricks for Fleece?

[paula.m.moore]

Does anybody use bricks to hold their fleece down? I have a few burrowers and I've never really had a reason to use anything to hold the fleece down but it gets *so* gross underneath the fleece when they go under there and play - I need to find something to hold it down.

For those who do - do they get really gross? If yes, are they reasonably easy to clean?

Is there something better than bricks to use? I have very persistent pigs, so simple things like pigloos, food bowls, other types of cage accessories are no problem for them to move aside. I need something pretty heavy.

[camende]

I use paver stones. I get them at Lowes but you could get them at any hardware store with garden supplies.

[gooberific]

I have my fleece binder-clipped to my coroplast. That'll teach 'em. I also have bricks under my water bottles. They seem to play "king of the brick" though...

[paula.m.moore]

Cool - thank you guys! Do you wrap the bricks in anything, like fleece or something else that's soft? Or does that matter so much? I'm just curious because I got these bricks that are 6" square but they seem to have some troublesome sharp edges.

[gooberific]

You can use a file (metal tool type file, not emery board) to round the edges and corners. I was lucky enough to find some that had been tumbled slightly and weren't sharp. I leave mine uncovered to (hopefully) help keep nails a tad bit shorter. It also helps to keep them a little bit cooler, since it absorbs all the drips from their water bottles, too.

[k9yorkie]

I use bricks in all the corners of my cage (2x8 L-shapped) and also where the two fleece pieces meet in the middle. I never had the problem of burrowing until recently. It seems that once they learned they could burrow, it's all they want to do now! I got bricks recently from Lowes. They work great! I do sweep them off real good every day when I do my daily cage sweeping. I haven't had any problems with them getting dirty yet, but I've only been using them for about a month. I don't cover them up either because I was told that if the piggies to walk on them, it will help to file their nails down. If you do get bricks, just check each on over real good for sharp spots. I ran my hand over each brick before I bought them so that I didn't buy any with sharp spots or corners.

[pigsforlife]

If allowed, my girls will burrow but it turns the towels underneath awfully gross and makes it horrible to clean. So I just pull the fleece up and over the corflute sides and peg them. As I have a kitchen area, I have no need for the fleece to go the full length of the cage - just up until where the kitchen tray starts. The fleece goes underneath the tray, and is duck taped at the sides. I have also found that providing different tunnels and houses, and basically anything to keep them entertained prevents them from wanting to burrow underneath the fleece.

[PixieStix]

I use bricks to hold my fleece down, as well as two (differently sized) fiddle stix houses, their litter box (filled with heavy wood pellets), and heavy big pellet bowl. My girls haven't figured out burrowing (yet!), but knowing them, if they figured it out, both of them would be living under the fleece full time.

They did go through a phase recently where one (or both, can't remember) would pull up a part of fleece to kind of use as a pillow. Not a lot, just a section on the edge. To solve that, I put an extra piece of fleece in, loose. I have a long, narrow loft, and I have four changes of fleece only for up there. The rest of the cage I only have two weeks changes worth, and do a pig laundry weekly, so long story short I have two extra long, narrow pieces of fleece. I scrunch one of those up and throw it in the cage. It's been a huge hit, the girls love to move it around and mold it to how they want it. The rumpled up fleece is now a very popular napping spot. They can do whatever they want with the fleece, but it doesn't mess up the cage and there's still fleece always under them. Works great!

[Nelli]

I had the same problem and a few guys on this forum suggested that I use paver stones. I went to Home Depot and purchased 4 paver stones and they work wonders at holdong down the fleece. I have pigloos and wooden tunnels and my piggies move them around like feather weights. The pavers that I bought were not as sharp as some of the other stones/bricks that I saw so I didn't have to worry about smoothing any of the corners down.