Switching to fleece some questions about piggies

[guineapigs2468]

Hi I am hoping to switch to fleece and had a question. I have noticed because I have 5 piggies living together they poo and wee a lot. I find myself cleaning them out 2 or more times a week to make sure they are not sleeping in wet bedding. I think with fleece it would make spot cleaning easier and I won't have to change the fleece as much as bedding is this right? I wanted to ask guinea pig owners out there who use fleece how many piggies do you have living together is it difficult to use fleece with a lot of piggies, I am hopefully making there cage bigger soon to. I would appreciate any other tips about using fleece and people's experience with it to. Thanks in advance.

[Duffinvt]

I have four sows and use fleece. I have an unusual system where I clean the cage, put down a fleece over mattress pad custom made liner. THEN, I put another absorbent layer on that and more fleece. When the weekend comes, I whip off the top layer of pad and fleece, leaving the clean bedding below. Voila! I also have their hay rack over a Rubbermaid tub cover on which I put a towel or puppy pad and then a fitted baby pack and play sheet, tucked in if it is too big. The sheet material does not allow the hay to stick like fleece. I have several of these and change it out every other day. Because it is where they pee and poop the most, this keeps the cage really clean and stink-free. A quick clean up of poops in other areas a couple of times a day and the cage is very clean.

[guineapigs2468]

Thanks Duffinvt I might try your idea when the fleece comes.

[Nicolene]

Hi, I use fleece with 2 layers of uhaul furniture pads (I have used my pads for 16 months now, best purchase ever!) and then I have a 1x2 grid sized litter/hay box with Carefresh. The two parts are separate coroplast boxes, so they hop from one into the other, keeping the carefresh off the fleece. It also helps because I can lift the 1x2 box out of the cage, dump it out in the trash can, wipe and replace the carefresh in minutes.

The fleece I use covers a 2x4 grid area. Every morning and evening I lift take the igloos and tunnels out and lift the fleece up and shake the poopies to the middle, and then I do the same with the other side, leaving a line of poop in the middle of the fleece that I quickly sweep up. I also move the igloos to a dry spot every day.

I clean my cage once a week, it starts smelling a little on day 6, but in the summer when it's warm the uhaul blankets seem to dry out faster, and I've gone 2 weeks in the summer.

I think Carefresh is a gift from above! LOL! I'm always shocked at how my litter boxes don't stink, but as soon as you dump it in the trash and everything is exposed the smell just explodes! Especially with the bunny's litter box, their urine smells so bad. It the priciest litter, but worth every penny! Our house is closed up all day, so we can judge our cages smells when we walk in at night, and it doesn't smell one little bit, until the evening of day 6. Which is just fine, as I clean them the following day.

I spent $40 on fleece and uhaul furniture pads (3 cage changes!) 16 months ago, and that's been it! I buy a large $20 bag of carefresh every month and I'm set.

I hang the dirty sets outside over a fence in the garden, then I do one big load (2 hours, sanitation cycle) to save water and electricity. We just recently got a HE front loader, and it uses very little water, so I was WORRIED, but on the long cycle, it does better than a top loader filled with water. I'm also too lazy to try to remove all the hair on the fleece first, so I just rinse and wipe the washer after, and run a cleaning cycle once a month to prevent build up. So, don't worry about clean up, it's pretty easy once you find your groove.

We only have 2 boys, but if your cage is big enough for 5, you should have similar results.

[guineapigs2468]

I was slightly worried about a build up of hay in the washing machine, but hopefully the cleaning cycle on the washing machine will stop build up. Thanks for the tips.

[pinky]

I was slightly worried about a build up of hay in the washing machine, but hopefully the cleaning cycle on the washing machine will stop build up. Thanks for the tips.

Put a lint screen over your washer hose because if you get hay in the drain, it cause a blockage in your drain and you can end up with a back up. We have a ejector pump and before I used the screen, water backed up out of our drain and I burned out the motor of our ejector pump when hay got clogged in it. I really shake off and clean off the hay before I wash it now and the screen catches any hay bits I've missed.

[guineapigs2468]

Thanks pinky I am going to try and get most of the hay off by vacuuming and using a brush, before putting the fleece into the washing machine so hopefully that will help to.

[Nicolene]

Oh, no no, you do want to get the hay off. I just shake my fleece outside to get all of the hay off. Some people also brush all the hair off, and that's the part I don't bother with.