Bedding What bedding do you use in your kitchen/hayloft?

I use wood pellets and love them.

Picture from my old loft.

@lissie Where did you get the wood pellets from? Was it from a pet supply store?

I use lino on mine, and used put towels + fleece up there too. Now I just have the lino cos the pigs don't really wee up there (well, once in a while) and it means I can clean the hay up better, and it doesn't end up being dragged down stairs

I use Healthy Pet Dust Free - Its sold as cat litter or for birds in most places but its great for the kitchen (and safe). It is more like little balls of paper so it doesn't stick to anything (other than a wet veggie or two). I used it with my ferret too. Love it. Sometimes I will put a layer or Cellsorb or something cheaper under it (my kitchen is deep) but always a THICK layer of this on top. So easy to sweep up and doesn't stick
to piggies

jubespiggies said:

@lissie Where did you get the wood pellets from? Was it from a pet supply store?

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The ones I get are wood stove pellets. Got it from OSH (a home hardware store).
(broken link removed)

If you're getting stove pellets, make sure they are 100% wood and don't have any additives.

I am currently just using a boot tray under the fleece and towel. Im going to make an official kitchen when I get new coroplast. the litter boxes have just used up way to much room.

Would it be possible to use shredded paper, or would that stink really quickly?

jubespiggies said:

Would it be possible to use shredded paper, or would that stink really quickly?

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Yes it would get really smelly quickly, and the absorbency is crap.
I also use wood stove pellets with great success. It's one of the the cheapest beddings with best odor control. I's very heavy however.

We use a thin layer of wood pellets covered by a layer of thick wood shavings, then topped with hay. We clean it daily which consists of removing old hay, pushing back the wood shavings layer and scooping out the wet patches of the pellets, topping pellets back up, pushing shavings back and then refilling with hay. We only have to do a full clean every 7-10 days, and the topping of wood shavings ensures the top layer where they lie down is always dry and soft. We use a stick bridge between the kitchen tray and the fleece to stop the bedding getting stuck to the fleece.

We have also used Megazorb, Carefresh, paper pellets, tissue bedding, Aspen, softened straw and Back 2 Nature. We were pretty disappointed with most of them, except Carefresh which we liked but is ridiculously priced.

I haven't adopted piggies yet - I'm in the process of building my cage and want to learn as much as I can BEFORE I adopt.
I was under the impression that when you use fleece liners, bedding isn't needed anywhere (except in like a litter box). Is bedding necessary in the kitchen area? I was trying to avoid it altogether due to the messiness and dustiness that can come from using it.

Kitchen area is like a large litter box. Most pigs will do business where they eat.

I'd really like to use fleece so I guess my options are as follows:
-Put the litter box in the kitchen (it's a 1x2...will this take up too much space?)
-Put the litter box in the regular floor level (pray they use it there and sweep up poops in kitchen daily)

Any other ideas? Suggestions regarding the two options above?

For the girls' cage I have carefresh in a corner litter pan and they do almost all their poo/pee there, fleece everywhere else. The boys' we're experimenting with aspen (limited options in our area) but previously used fleece. The boys are extremely messy and don't go in one area.

Are girls generally cleaner than boys? I've read many people state that their boys will pull hay all over, pee/poop all over and their girls are much cleaner.

I don't know about all piggies, but my girls are much much cleaner than the boys. The girls do most everything in the litter area and the boys do it all over and pull all the hay out. The boys are pretty gross as far as keeping the area tidy, like human boys, lol

LOL! Yes, human boys are definitely messier so I guess why wouldn't piggie boys be? I originally planned on adopting boys because I built the cage in my son's room and didn't want a bunch of pink in his room. Then I realized it was a better idea to rebuild it in the livingroom so I guess now I don't have a color restriction. Maybe I'll get girls instead! As I said, I'm still learning about piggies so...do unspayed girls go through menstruation? I think I'd freak out if they started bleeding and confuse it for an injury every time.

mama_ said:

I'd really like to use fleece so I guess my options are as follows:
-Put the litter box in the kitchen (it's a 1x2...will this take up too much space?)
-Put the litter box in the regular floor level (pray they use it there and sweep up poops in kitchen daily)

Any other ideas? Suggestions regarding the two options above?

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You will find that a "litter box" has quite a different meaning in the world of piggies. VERY few will go into a box to just use the bathroom. Most will poop and pee where they eat and where they sleep. Therefore, your best bet is to put extra towels or mats under sleeping areas and basically make a box that is big enough to but food bowls, hay racks and water bottles in it and fill that with some kind of litter so it can be scooped out as needed. (see photo example). In that example, I used the bottom of a store bought cage. The rest of my cage is fleece. I still have to sweep up poop off fleece and change towels under pigloos etc daily but the rest of the fleece lasts a week or so with two piggies (one male and one spayed female). While the boy can be messy, the girls sometimes spray pee so I think they trade off with being the messy one. I would not get your hopes up about using a litter box in the normal sense as statistics show pigs are rarely fully potty trained.

You can see pictures of the rest of the cage and my cute piggies in my gallery.

For pee, I've found it helpful to fold up a large or toddler sized prefold diaper and place one in every corner. It can be easily changed out and it helps things last a little longer.