How to give good floor time?

[kalrik]

I have carpet and I dont want there to be pee on the carpet or have to clean it up everytime they get floor time. I can't take them to a kitchen cuz we have two cats and a dog. They need to be in an enclosed room all of which are bedrooms with carpet in this house. What does everyone else do? And how do they fence in the area? I have a bed that I can't fit under to retrieve a pig and an entertainment system with a billion wires. I need ideas with the carpet and fencing in. If I used a whole bunch of grids and zipties could I fold the thing up easily and shove it under the bed? Thanks.

[aqh88]

For floortime I block off my bed and dresser with walmart small animal playpens. They aren't much different than grids ziptied together and fold up if I want to put them away but they also have loops and hooks to securely close the pen. Since mine are around the edges they aren't in the way and I just leave them out. I lay towels in the corners and the wheeks pee on them 90% of the time and poop on them 60% of the time. After floor time I shake the towels outside and either throw them in the laundry if they are wet or stack them to resuse the next day. Then I vacuum up that 40% that didn't make it on the towels and any pee spots are dry within about 2mins. I shampoo the main area of my carpet about every other month. You can also lay down a blanket and shake it outside when your done if you want to completely protect the carpet from everything. My old blue/grey carpet doesn't really matter to me. I want to replace it soon anyway. In the future I want a linoleum(sp?) room for them to play in.

[dybbuk]

What I did and was pretty cheap. I got a small all purpose waterproof tarp from home depot (9' X 12' i think) close to the smallest they have for maybe 10 dollars.
I lay that out so nothing gets to the carpet. Then I put an old bed sheet or blanket over that since the tarp is plastic and the piggies like the cloth better. As for containment I use extra wire pannels from the C&C home I made. These are available many places most commonly target or walmart and can range from 10 to 30 dollars a set.

Using the wire pannels allows for many different size and shape configurations and compacts nicely when not in use.

The old bed sheet or blanket can be washed as needed and the tarp get the occasional rinse as well. Carpet remains untainted.

Hope this helps

[kathleen5]

I have hard wood floors so I am lucky in that area. It is so easy to clean up those little puddles and jellybeans.

Could you lock up your cats and dogs in a room for awhile? My dogs are just in love with my piggies so they are OK. I will lock my cats in my laundry room where their litter box, food, water and beds are. My guinea pigs have floor time in the great room because it is guinea pig safe unlike my bedroom ect. There is no way I could block my cats off from it so that is why I have to lock my cats away for awhile.
Hope this helps!
Kathleen

[kalrik]

dybbukk, so are you cleaning bed sheets after every floor time session?

[dybbuk]

it depends how much of a mess the pigs make. But yes.

[Poohbear]

I just put some grids up then put a plasic sheet under it and then I cover it with fleece.