Fleece Yes, Finally, Moving to fleece!!! Questions too! - Guinea Pig Cages, Care, Store, Photos of Guinea Pigs and More Forum!

**RainbowPiggy** · #1 06-19-09, 06:06 pm

My 2 guinea pigs have Alfafa wood chip bedding in their cage, and since they are litter-box trained, I've decided to finally put fleece in their cage instead of bedding! (Except for the litter box cage, ofcourse.) I'm sure that they will urine on the fleece, so should I wash it about once a week? I'll just take the poops on the fleece out everyday, because I'm sure they will be a few out of the litter box. Also, what bedding should I use for the litter box, or is the Alfafa wood-chip bedding fine? They seem to like it. I had a guinea pig that died a few weeks ago, we're pretty sure from a respitory infection, due to using Care Fresh. We no longer use that bedding. Thanks.

~RainbowPiggy

**RainbowPiggy** · #2 06-19-09, 06:20 pm

Ahahah, I'm posting on this to get it back to the top

Ha sorry I just really want people to answer

**Froggirl009** · #3 06-19-09, 06:26 pm

I have two peices of fleece and when I cleen the cage I put the dirty fleece in the wash and I put the clean fleece in the cage. I'm not sure about the bedding. Make sure to put something under the fleece to absorb the pee like towels.

Also, read this. It helped me a lot. http://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/...tml#post249549

**Ilovemypiggies1** · #4 06-19-09, 06:29 pm

Carefresh is a wonderful bedding, it can be a little dusty though. Piggies don't just get Respiratory Infections just from bedding so most likely it was not from Carefresh but you never know. I do know that Pine/Cedar beddings can cause major Respiratory problems. I would wash the fleece at least once a week. I just put a litter box in my piggies cage and i wash the fleece once every week and pick up the remaining poops every day. I'm sure Alfalfa wood chip bedding would be fine, as long as it doesn't have a strong odor like pine or cedar. I'm sorry to hear about your piggie that passed away.

**RainbowPiggy** · #5 06-19-09, 06:34 pm

Sorry for posting for a 3rd time, I just realized that I wrote "Litter-box cage" and I wanted to correct that. I meant to say Litter box, haha.

**RainbowPiggy** · #6 06-19-09, 06:35 pm

Ilovemypiggies1,

Thanks. Yeah we we're told from like some experts or whatever that it was a respitory infection, But she died before we could get her to the vet. She was found with blood coming out of her nose and mouth, and was EXTREMELY skinny, with bones sticking out. (No, not out of her skin.)

Any idea on what that was?

**ferndalezoo** · #7 06-19-09, 07:11 pm

Alfalfa is a kind of hay. It's not a kind of wood. Therefore, there's no such thing that I am aware of called "alfalfa wood-chip bedding". They're two different things.

Second-- if your pig was "skin and bones" with blood coming out of her nose and mouth, you most likely had PLENTY of chance to get her to the vet before that--- and chose not to. None of those are symptoms that arise overnight! She was losing weight, and you CHOSE not to take her to the vet? She was sneezing, had increased nasal discharge, etc (ALL of which come before the whole red-stuff-pouring-from-nose-and-mouth-stage) and you CHOSE not to take her to the vet?

**RainbowPiggy** · #8 06-19-09, 07:19 pm

Oops meant to say Aspen, not alfafa, sorry.

**ferndalezoo** · #9 06-19-09, 07:22 pm

Aspen is good. Fleece is also good. So is carefresh. It's HIGHLY unlikely that your pig died from carefresh bedding's use. Even if the dust from it caused a URI, it's the fault of the adult caregiver (you? Your parents? Hard to tell, and you can't post your age here if you're under 18!) for NOT providing proper vet care at the first sign of impending health issues. The symptoms you described are end-stage URI, not the beginning, and they don't appear overnight! Why wasn't that pig vetted when the weight-loss was noted? When the nasal discharge started? The sneezing?

**RainbowPiggy** · #10 06-19-09, 07:25 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by ferndalezoo

Alfalfa is a kind of hay. It's not a kind of wood. Therefore, there's no such thing that I am aware of called "alfalfa wood-chip bedding". They're two different things.

Second-- if your pig was "skin and bones" with blood coming out of her nose and mouth, you most likely had PLENTY of chance to get her to the vet before that--- and chose not to. None of those are symptoms that arise overnight! She was losing weight, and you CHOSE not to take her to the vet? She was sneezing, had increased nasal discharge, etc (ALL of which come before the whole red-stuff-pouring-from-nose-and-mouth-stage) and you CHOSE not to take her to the vet?

I meant to say Aspen. Next, My guinea pig was found being extremely skinny when I got back to my house at 9:30pm, and no vet is open at that hour so I planned to take her the next day. When I woke up, she was dead, With blood coming from her nose and mouth WHEN she was dead. SHe didn't have it before she was dead. Now the day before that, she was fine. This was all between a 10 hour time period, so I couldn't do anything. You may have recieved this message twice, as I had to type it again because it didn't show up on my thread.

P.S, I noticed the weight loss at night time, the day before she died.

**PiggieMom** · #11 06-19-09, 08:31 pm

Rainbowpiggy: though this isn't the topic of the thread, I want to encourage you to start weighing your remaining pigs weekly with a kitchen scale. Scales are cheap and available at all supermarkets. Weigh the pigs and record their weights every week so that you can note weight loss before it becomes dramatic loss. This is very important. Read up on weighing weekly here.

**RainbowPiggy** · #12 06-19-09, 08:40 pm

I actually do that, and my guinea pig had no drop in weight 2 days before. We honestly have no clue what happened to her though. But don't worry, I take good care of my guinea pigs and mine are doing fine right now. Thanks so much for mentioning the tip though. I'll try to do it more often, even though her weight loss occured in a day (We don't know how that managed to happen!)

**Paula** · #13 06-20-09, 12:20 am

Quote:

Ahahah, I'm posting on this to get it back to the top

Ha sorry I just really want people to answer

You need to be patient and not expect people to answer your threads right away. This behavior is likely to get you impactions in short order, so please cut it out and just be patient when you're waiting for replies.

Quote:

Yeah we we're told from like some experts or whatever that it was a respitory infection, But she died before we could get her to the vet. She was found with blood coming out of her nose and mouth, and was EXTREMELY skinny, with bones sticking out. (No, not out of her skin.)

Can you please tell me what "experts or whatever" constitutes? The condition you describe here suggests an illness that was going on a very long time and not something that just "sprung up." She could have had a URI, maloclusion, or both. Both conditions are treatable and are easily observed by an attentive owner. Your pets depend entirely on you for their care and so it's important that you take extra care to monitor their health daily. Weighing weekly is an excellent place to start.

I agree with the others, that have pointed out the death you describe is very unlikely to have been caused by the CareFresh bedding alone.

To answer the questions you asked in your original post, fleece and other bedding needs to be changed and washed at least once a week.

As for the litter box areas, you can use anything that would be recommended for an entire cage - aspen, CareFresh, etc.

"Thank you, ferndalezoo, for this useful post," say these 2 members:
Froggirl009 (06-19-09), Peggysu (06-19-09)

"Thank you, ferndalezoo, for this useful post," say these 4 members:
Froggirl009 (06-19-09), katiewilson (06-22-09), Paula (06-20-09), Peggysu (06-19-09)

"Thank you, Paula, for this useful post," say these 3 members:
Froggirl009 (06-21-09), katiewilson (06-22-09), Peggysu (06-20-09)