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Wood Pellets/Chips 3 full weeks of wood pellets

bpatters

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They're the absolute best at odor control. There's never any odor at all from my cage unless I fail to pick up the peed-on hay in a timely manner.

There's a little dust when you pour a whole bag in the cage, but it's not bad, and once you put the fleece on it, there's no dust at all.
 

barbaramudge

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I gotta tell you, I don't understand how this works! It's not that I don't believe you, because I do, but I just can't wrap ,y brain around it. The pellets soak up the pee and turn to dust. You stir it up. The dust (aka pee) is still in there so how does that not smell? Again, I totally believe you, I just don't get how that works...lol.
[MENTION=13820]bpatters[/MENTION], does your fleece go up the sides and get clipped on like [MENTION=11925]cavyguy[/MENTION]'s ? I finally found a good wood pellet here so I'd like to try this out before my summer vacations start. Just trying to figure out how to make it easiest for my pig sitter. He's a good pig sitter for the most part but really lazy about the cleaning up part.
 

mamaduck71

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About how many inches of pellets are on the corplast? Also, when you 'stir" up the pee'd on pellets do you ever add fresh (from the bag) pellets or just take from the middle as shown on the cavyguy's video?
 

CavieGuy

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About how many inches of pellets are on the corplast? Also, when you 'stir" up the pee'd on pellets do you ever add fresh (from the bag) pellets or just take from the middle as shown on the cavyguy's video?

There are no set rules with using wood pellets, find what makes you comfortablle

Using two bags, I think I get 2-3 inches

Some would take used pee portion out and add some new pellets, I just stir mine around and take portions from the middle where they don't pee. My piggies pee in the corner and not in the middle of the cage.
 

mamaduck71

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Okay thanks. This a great thread with awesome info. Since I purchased the UHaul pad 1st, I will give that ago for awhile and see how it is. Maybe in the future I will try wood pellets. I think some of us learned alot from this thread.
 

3littlepigz

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Yesterday marked three weeks since I moved to wood pellets and I'm LOVING it! The videos and the thread has been very informative! Thank you!!
 

lunarminx

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You know what they say, once you go pellets, you never go back.
 

AnnikasMommy

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Since I went with wood pellets and fleece I have had NO odor issues and my laundry load has gone from 2 loads a week to one load on Saturdays which makes my life so much happier. I do what [MENTION=28640]CavieGuy[/MENTION] does and just stir from the sides and pull from the middle. My boys pee in corners so it's not all over the place. I did scoop their one corner the other day since it seemed they focused all their urine to that one spot for the entire day. I noticed it when I was sweeping fleece. My cage is a 4x4 and I used a bag and a half so 60 lbs of pellets. My cage is directly on the floor as I haven't figured out best way for us to raise it yet. That will come in time, probably during my next remodel lol
 

CavieGuy

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I'm glad that this thread helped you. When it is time to change my wood pellets, I will make a 'wood pellet' video series from Week 1,2,3...all through 8 so you can see how the pellets look like.

There was a similar thread (forgot the creator) that peaked my interest to wood pellets, at first I didn't believe the "no odor" claim or change every 8 weeks...but I gave it a try and I'm a firm believer now.

Benefits:

Reduce in laundry loads
No pee smell
No longer limiting folks from visiting my place (usually tell them to come after a cage cleaning day)
Change fleece once a week (before every 3-4 days with uhaul pad)
wood pellet bags are cheap (avg $5 for 40 lbs)
 

bpatters

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You guys are way overthinking this. A bag of pellets will cost you about $5-$7 dollars. Just go get one and try it out. If you don't like it, that's all you've lost.

They're fine. There's no dust to speak of. You can stir or not stir. You can replace or not replace. You can put one inch, or two inches, or three inches, or more.

It's not rocket science, folks.
 

mamaduck71

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No it's not rocket science however isn't that what this forum is about, communication, sharing ideas, what works, what doesn't. Maybe someone would not have done the pellets but saw Cavie Guys video and now would like to try.

No harm done!
 

Agrimony

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I'd love to try wood pellets but I am in a walk up apartment and don't know about carrying that much weight up! I'm a weakling lol
 

mamaduck71

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I'd love to try wood pellets but I am in a walk up apartment and don't know about carrying that much weight up! I'm a weakling lol

You could do it in bunches. Do you have a car? Leave the bag in your car and do 2-5 pounds in a bucket. Every time you come home from work, school or store, bring up a load in the bucket.
 

labeadel

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Thank you all for all of your help! Do you hear the GP's walking around on the wood pellets? I noticed that I could hear them walking in CavieGuy's video.
 

3littlepigz

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I do. Especially when the pellets are brand new. After they've absorbed urine and have settled, the sound will be less.
 

AnnikasMommy

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I think I noticed it more when I first put in the wood pellets but I think that is because they were running amuck when I put them back in their cage. [MENTION=24349]Agrimony[/MENTION] find some guy who likes to "flex" and ask him to haul them up for you. LOL Honestly though I live in a two story home and I carry two 40 lb bags up back to back. You may think 40 is heavy but the bags are easy to carry because they are no awkward. Now hay bales would suck to carry up.
 

SquigglyPigs

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Wood pellets are awesome at odor control but I think I need to wait until we buy a house to use them permanently. We live on the third level of an apartment building and it gets pretty heavy to change out, not to mention the closest place with adequate pellets is 45 minutes away. We tried the kiln-dried Tractor Supply horse stall pellets and boy, did they smell strongly of wood! My boyfriend came home every day and said our apartment smelled like Home Depot lol
We have no garage or outdoor area to air them out before putting them in the cage so it didn't work out for us. It's too bad because they were really awesome with odor control. I will have to try again when we buy a house and move closer to a supplier. Just a couple things to keep in mind for you apartment people!
 

labeadel

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@bpatters geesh, we're just asking questions to be sure this is how we want to proceed. Before yesterday, I didn't have any fleece, so I had to get out to buy that, plus I live in a big city where there are not a ton of feed stores nearby in the city. I finally found one after looking for quite a while, but it's going to be a little bit of a drive for me. And I'm a working mom, so I'm making sure this is all worth it, time and money-wise, before I make the plunge. And some of us are planners, not just fly by the seat of our pants. I don't want to do this with uhaul pads or newspapers under the fleece since I think that would smell badly and I cannot be cleaning the cage every 3-4 days (as I said, working mother). So I want to make sure the fleece with pellets will be right for us or I just won't do it. If you don't want to answer any further questions, no need to. :) The others are helping a lot.
[MENTION=34779]allisonj30[/MENTION], I live in an apartment too, so thanks for your thoughts! We live on the 2nd story, but thankfully we have grocery carts for the residents to use, so either my muscular Hubby will carry the bags up, or we'll use a cart. I started lifting weights lately, so we'll see how I do! LOL
 

bpatters

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@labeadel, my point was that it's not like making a major commitment, like fleece, which has an expensive startup. It would cost you about $5 to just try them, and then you'd know for sure whether or not you wanted to use them.

I don't know about time-wise for you, but it's definitely less time for me, and it's by far the cheapest option you can use.
 

SquigglyPigs

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@labeadel I definitely think carrying them can be done, especially with the help of another person! I wish our aparment building had an elevator - it would make things so much easier. I can't wait to move out!
I was really bummed that the pellets ended up not being what I had hoped but I would definitely try it out again if I found a more convenient and less smelly bag of wood pellets. I think everyone should give them a try because they are cheap and if you end up hating it, you didn't waste too much money! Everyone has different preferences for bedding so you just have to find what works for you :)
 
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