Why Hello There

I forgot one of my questions: Something I was reading made it sound as though having the dividers in the cage was a bad thing. May I ask if this is true, and if so, why?

My thoughts on your questions:

1: I'm honestly not sure about the sheet. I supposed it would work, but I've only ever used fleece or aspen wood shavings.

2: They don't really need baths according to my vet. I have some piggy shampoo from Gorgeous Guineas, but I haven't bathed mine too frequently. Just if they happen to be really gross/smelly. My female likes to sleep in the litter box and my male, well is a male and his grease gland gets gunky more frequently. The only other time I've really bathed them is when I was trying to get them to get along and had to do "buddy baths."

3: KMS Hayloft are great pellets. I used them briefly as I had read on here that a few people felt their pigs' calcium deposits decreased while on those pellets compared to Oxbow. Well, I live all the way in PA, so getting those pellets from CA, cost me over $40 with shipping. I'm a vet student and get the 10 lb bag of Oxbow pellets for under $10 through a program. When I owe so much already for my education, I decided to just stick with Oxbow out of convenience and they are a good pellet. I still wouldn't free feed them. Oxbow Pellets are only timothy hay, but they still recommend 1/8-1/4 cup daily. As for the time frame of shipments, I think it took like a week to get to me.

4: As for the dividers, do you mean like making a little cubed off area within the cage that is kind of like a hidey/kitchen area, or are you taking about dividing a cage entirely in half and having a pig on each side? If it's the first option, I think most people say they're bad because a pig can get cornered and feel trapped and it may lead to fights. If you're talking about the latter, I've done it when my pigs didn't get along so that they could interact with each other without feeling threatened. Only issue I had was grid chewing, but I just put a strip of coroplast along the divider to prevent them from chewing on the bars.

A cotton sheet won't work because it won't wick. It'll get wet.

Ditto @pinky. Cotton isn't good at all. They'll be sitting in their own wastes, and may get bumblefoot. And you can bathe a pig whenever you want, but they usually don't need it. If you keep the long hair trimmed around their butts, they'll keep themselves pretty clean. If not, they may need butt baths. But as far as harming the pig, it won't, unless you use a really harsh shampoo, or bathe so often that their skin gets dried out.
@Mowgs, Oxbow uses calcium carbonate as the calcium source for their pellets, and there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that some pigs have problems with sludge/stones when eating Oxbow. Those pellets are not just timothy hay, they've got a ton of stuff added to them.

bpatters said:

@Mowgs, Oxbow uses calcium carbonate as the calcium source for their pellets, and there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that some pigs have problems with sludge/stones when eating Oxbow. Those pellets are not just timothy hay, they've got a ton of stuff added to them.

Click to expand...

What I meant by only timothy is that there aren't other hay types, seeds, artificial colorings, etc. And actually, if you look at the current list of ingredients for Oxbow pellets, calcium carbonate is not listed anywhere. They use calcium iodate which is the same in KMS Hayloft. It does have colbalt carbonate if that's what you're referring to. And if you compared the ingredient list for both pellets, you'll see a lot of similarities. Some differences, yes, but eh.

Either way, I didn't see an improvement in my pigs while they were on the KMS Hayloft pellets, so I saw no reason to pay $40 for pellets.

I see the questions were already taken care of, so welcome! Please post pigtures as soon as you can!

An edit from my previous post. Totally missed where it said Limestone in the ingredient list for Oxbow, so you are still correct. Totally thought for a second that they had switched up their ingredient list, so what I said regards to the calcium portion can be disregarded.

Calcium iodate is the iodine source, not the calcium source. The calcium source is limestone, which is calcium carbonate.