Wet bottom

[Pollyerrington]

Hiya,
I have 2 piggies. They are both abyssinians. Pinkie has slightly short hair, while Charlie has longer hair.
Charlie regularly has a wet bottom which smells a little of urine. Is this just because she has longer hair?
I recently started them on fleece and it's only had one wash (until today where I've given it another 2 washes) Could the lack of wicking urine on the fleece have contributed to this?

Charlie also has a habit of burying into the fleece and chilling there for quite some time (meaning she wee's and doesn't move away...)

Do you think this is all quite normal?

I'm planning on regularly trimming the hair around her bum so it's less of a problem...

[akstrohm]

Fleece needs to be washed several times before use, so that's probably part of your problem. The more you wash it, the better it will get.

Trimming the hair and giving her butt baths will help too.

[rabbitsncavyluv]

UTI can cause that sometimes too.

[twilightwheek]

I know this is an older thread. I just hate starting new ones.

I am having the same problem with Tabytha. She just got over a UTI but the last urinalysis showed no more infection. She is eating, drinking, weeing and pooping normally. Her behavior is normal and she's been pop-corning about a LOT more in the past few days actually.

Her bottom is visibly wet, and is definitely urine.

She's on fleece bedding and tends to like to wee in her house, but this is excessive. Any tips to help this or ideas as to why this is happening when her bedding wicks just fine?

Should I withhold veggies and give her more pellets? This would only seem right if her poos were soft too.
Help!

Thanks!

[ojars]

We did the 4 washes recommended at the start and got good wicking. Below the fleece is a thick layer of newspaper. Both fleece and newspaper are replaced after a week with fresh materials. By now the fleeces have had many washes! Note that the fleeces are folded over to give 2 or 3 layers. The litter boxes also have layers of newspaper below the aspen chips -- these are replaced after 3 or 4 days. Buddy and Billy have not had wet bottoms once we understood the regimen -- thanks to the folks contributing to guineapigcages.com!!

[akstrohm]

There are two problems with your setup:

You should use only one layer of fleece. Using more makes things worse, not better.

Newspaper is not absorbent. Use towels (or an absorbent mattress pad) instead of newspaper and you should see a huge difference. Newspaper should not be used as bedding at all.

[ojars]

There are two problems with your setup:

You should use only one layer of fleece. Using more makes things worse, not better.

Newspaper is not absorbent. Use towels (or an absorbent mattress pad) instead of newspaper and you should see a huge difference. Newspaper should not be used as bedding at all.

It is not easy to understand how more layers of fleece make things worse -- for our setup, the improvement is readily evident. I can certainly understand that the expense of more fleece may well limit its use.

I do agree that newspaper is inappropriate for bedding, but that is not how we use it -- the newspaper is a layer beneath the bedding. For anyone who has handled a wet newspaper from the morning delivery, it is also evident that newspaper absorbs rather well, although not as well as my chamois for the cars or as well as my bath towels, I must admit. I recall that the expert Peter Gurney rather fancied newspaper as a floor beneath bedding. In his words, "Newspaper is absorbent enough to cope with the small amount of urine that guinea pigs pass" -- ("The Proper Care of Guinea Pigs", p. 37). From direct observation, it is clear he is correct. We then toss the newspaper in the recycle bin for a simple clean up.

[crystalllynn]

The purpose of the layering with fleece is to have an absorbent layer underneath one layer of fleece to "pull" the moisture to the absorbent layer. There's no sense in having 2 layers of fleece because the fleece is just an agent to wick the moisture away from the animal. Newspaper is not absorbent. It just gets wet. Pour water on a layer of newspaper and it is not going to absorb the water. Most of it will just run off. What the people here are talking about with the towels is that it actually absorbs the moisture and holds it.

And in reference to the quote saying that newspaper is absorbent enough to handle the small amounts of urine they pass, he has never felt how heavy my towels are when I do a complete cage clean.

[GizzyandMe]

Her bottom is visibly wet, and is definitely urine.

Gizzy's butt is always wet if I do not keep the hair super short! She will sit in her litter tray for hours and nearly break her neck to reach the hay from there but will not get up. So I have found since I keep her hair super short its dries really quick even if she does sit on her butt for hours on end. (sorry my super adorable pig is also super lazy some days - in her defense it is extremely hot here at the moment so she might be sitting in the litter tray to cool off)

[Catayn]

I need to trim Morgan's fur around his butt very short, in order to stop the smell. Sometimes he smells bad either way, but it's not wet.
Start using towels, you'll see they will absorb much better and you won't need to change them everyday.
I change mine once a week and the ones in the bottom of the cage are rarely wet.

[Catayn]

"Newspaper is absorbent enough to cope with the small amount of urine that guinea pigs pass" -- ("The Proper Care of Guinea Pigs", p. 37). From direct observation, it is clear he is correct. We then toss the newspaper in the recycle bin for a simple clean up.

I would never classify their amount of urine as "small" once they pee every 30 minutes, but maybe my boys pee more than regular piggies. (?)

[Lizbeth]

We have a particular towel we use that is pretty much exactly the size of their cage. I have a piece of fleece that is twice the size of the cage. I put the fleece on the ground, then put the towel on half of it, and fold the fleece over it. Seems to be plenty of padding and no problem absorbing the urine. I just take the whole thing out once a week, shake it off outside into the trash, and toss it in the wash.

[ojars]

Buddy and Billy tend to use favorite spots for urination. By the process of discovery, we have added additional absorbent material in those areas to help the wicking process of the fleeces.

The newspapers handle the tiny yet frequent flow quite well -- per direct observation.

[Ly&Pigs]

I just wanted to add a little side note to this thread. Peter Gurney's methods on many things are rather questionable. For this reason, we do not allow links to his site nor his advice here.

[MaggieMae]

Is it bad to layer fleece or just pointless? Right now I have fleece folded over in my cage because I had cut it to fit the new cage which is going to be twice the size. It hasn't been in there long but I checked and it doesn't seem wet.

Also, I had my guinea pig out for floor time last night and she was sitting in her litter box paper bag with newspaper underneath.. I went to pick her up and like, her butt and the whole bag including the newspaper underneath was just SOAKED. :X I hardly ever notice if she pees on a towel, I never realized when they pee they pee that much!! I'm going back to my old litter box idea but I was just saying, all that newpaper and paper bag was nothing in comparison to the absorbency of an old ratty towel.

[akstrohm]

It's bad to use more than one layer of fleece--it decreases the ability of moisture to wick through. Instead you could wrap the fleece underneath the towel so there is only one layer of fleece on top. That way you don't have to cut it.

[twilightwheek]

She will sit in her litter tray for hours and nearly break her neck to reach the hay from there but will not get up.

HAHA! Thats exactly how Tabytha Sue is! She also will go pee while sleeping in her house, look over her rump at her puddle as it dissipates through the fleece and refuse to move her rear an inch while there's still a puddle and stretch her little front arms and mouth to get to the hay. I think she does it on purpose.

She is okay today, not wet at all (minus peeing on me 3 separate times while waiting at the vet for her nail trim & once more in her carrier, which got on the chair and then one last time in the car, which got on the seat) so I don't agree that guinea pigs pee little amounts. This pig pees a LOT!

Thanks for the helpful info, I will look into trying to trim her longer butt hairs. That? Should be fun. I don't know who Peter Gurney is, and I'm guessing I shouldn't care. ;)

& for general knowledge on my bedding, she's on fleece/puppy pads/towels. Underlays changed every 3 days or so, fleece once a week (or more often if I discover the super cute fleece doesn't absorb very good :() She doesn't tunnel under the fleece so I just neatly fold it under the towels since it's only about 4 inches too long on the sides and an inch too long top & bottom. I haven't had to cut or sew anything! It's so convenient. Thank goodness for this fleece phenomenon!

This site gives me a guinea pig worry complex. :D

[leyley904]

A lot of pee! Their wee little bladders!

[leyley904]

Haha, sorry that was a pretty pointless post. My rabbits just surprise me with the amount of pee coming out of them on a daily basis!

[twilightwheek]

Even on days when she doesn't drink a lot, Tabytha Sue pees all over the place. & sits in it. Haha. I'm assuming its the new-ness of the fleece since it's only been a couple of weeks since we started it and she just got over a UTI. Hopefully by next week she will learn!