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General Shavings or Fleece?

PiggyLove1

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I want to know what you like better and why. Shavings or fleece?
 

HannibalLecter

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I use both disposable bedding and fleece. We have a large kitchen area with wood or paper pellets and fleece in the main cage, and since we added the kitchen the hay stays off the fleece & the pigs mostly poop & pee where the hay is, meaning I can go twice as long between changing the fleece. :D

Hate shavings though, ends up all over the place.
 

kawaiimiyo

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I am now trying fleece for the first time.... I have had many guinea pigs in the past, and have used shavings for all of them... it always cost a lot of money, and was a pain in the neck to clean their cages.... And so due to recent financial struggles, I went with the fleece to save me that extra monthly expense...

I **love** it!!! Cleaning is so much easier... they go mostly in their litter box, and I keep a small mat under their hidey-house ... On a daily basis I empty the box, replace the mat, and just spot clean some of the stray droppings, it only takes 5 minutes... And when it's time to clean the whole cage, easy!!! Shake off the blankets, in the garbage throw them in the wash along with the towels... and I always have a clean set on hand! ^_^ Plus when I can't decide on the colors or prints I want in the cage... (Fleece has so many options!) I can have a variety to choose from =)

I think the smell can be worse though on fleece... I think shavings may have masked some of it better... then again this could just be one of those "Territorial" things that is making them smell so much
 

LexiandLily

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Shavings are meant to be bad for their health, a man in a pet shop (who sold shavings, so he obviously had the pets best interest at heart) asked me if I would like to put my head in a bag and if I would like to sleep with shavings that close to my face, the obvious answer is no, I would prefer fleece, so that's what I went for and the girls love it, I've had no problems with smell - not that I can notice anyway.

I have a spare set of fleece liners and beds so we can rotate and wash on a regular basis. It's ideal.

Shavings also apparently dry piggies skin out. We got our girls from a friend of a friend who had a litter (not by choice) and he was using shavings, the girls feet were very dry and so were their ears, but 4 weeks later they seem lovely and soft. Could be coincidence, who knows!
 

Varcoda

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wood chips mask the smell much better than fleece. With fleece i start noticing smells 3-5 days later, although the strength of it varies.

Chips are more expensive of course, but fleece is more colorful and fun looking.

It's easier to dump out chips(or burn them) and fleece takes work to get out the fur.
 

Pawesomepet

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I went with fleece not only for cost and cuteness but for my piggies happiness (I've got 12 and every single one of them prefer fleece) through much observation and experimentation my piggies have chosen fleece over ANY other bedding/shavings etc.
 

kawaiimiyo

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and fleece takes work to get out the fur.

I went ahead and picked up a couple of lint rollers at the dollar store for this reason... Haven't tried it on their fleece bedding just yet... but they certainly work for me after a cuddle session with the piggies! ^_^
 

NursePiggy

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I use both disposable bedding and fleece. We have a large kitchen area with wood or paper pellets and fleece in the main cage, and since we added the kitchen the hay stays off the fleece & the pigs mostly poop & pee where the hay is, meaning I can go twice as long between changing the fleece. :D

Hate shavings though, ends up all over the place.


I hate that too...decided to try the fleece in the kitchen area as well. We shall see...I am curious to see if the odor bothers me more than picking up stray pellets.
 

Varcoda

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@kawaiimiyo i used to use lint rollers too and it's great, but i stick with brushing since the lint rollers often get used by the husband to clean his own clothes.... without realising they've been all over peed on fleece!
 

LitaRutherford

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Fleece, its reusable, cheaper in the long run, and much more fun. I have four males and I never have any issues with smell, so it does depend on your pigs a bit. My boys are just not very smelly. Takes me ten minutes or so to do a full cage sweep (I don't use litter boxes, they take up a lot of space in my mind and it defeats of the purpose of not having to buy "traditional" bedding.) And every week I change out the "sheets" which takes me about 30min. My cage is a large 6ft by 4ft, so it takes a bit. But when I had my first two they were in a "large" pet store cage and to change out traditional bedding in that tiny thing took 40min to an hour, so 20 or 30 min to change out the big cage is a big improvement.

The worst thing about fleece is... The hay sticks to it like mad (I hang the fleece in the back yard and use an old broom to sweep off the hay bits and some of the hair before washing). Annnd it is also very very easy to buy new fleece, which depending on where you live, can be a bit expensive of a habit.
 

TheMuffinPiggy

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I like fleece more, because it looks better, it's way easier to clean, Muffin likes it more. In my opinion it smells less too. It's way cheaper and safer for your piggies!!
 

PiggyLove1

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I agree with all of you... fleece is so much better!
 
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