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Wood Pellets/Chips Trying out wood pellets and vetbed

Marie1234

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Day one of vetbed and wood pellets....the pigggies certainly seem to like it. So far so good. If people are interested i can update this post with how things continue over the next several weeks.
20171231_141723.jpg
 

Squibbles

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I am very interested to know how it works out! I?ve been looking into using vet bedding myself. How much did it cost you? Where did you get it?


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Marie1234

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I bought two 75x75cm pieces from an eBay seller based in the UK for about $60 CAD with tax and shipping (the one pictured). I also bought one 48"x60" piece from VetBed Canada for about $73 CAD with tax and shipping -it should arrive any day now.. I want to compare "brand name" to the ebay seller and also see if i like smaller pieces for washing or one big peice....
I also purchased the non slip type as it comes in patterns....the solid back stuff is all one colour.

So far I can say it' easy to vacuum up poops off of it....
 

Squibbles

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Are you using a handheld vacuum? I bought one for mine but it was extremely cheap. Like $15 US. It works fine for hay and other debris but for their poopies it usually just either smashes them into the fleece and hard surfaces or it misses them completely... I have even tried different holding angles lol but I just cannot get it to work properly! It is super frustrating.


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Marie1234

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Mine is a Shark cordless 15.6 volt. It's terrible at picking up hay but picks up the poops just fine. So far I've only had to use it one day though so time will tell...
 

Squibbles

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Its interesting that my cheap handheld gets the hay up very well and your shark gets the poopies up well. I guess I will look into the shark vacuum as I don?t care much about the hay but honestly, there?s never hay in any other area than where it is supposed to be now that I think about it.


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lissie

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Marie1234

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Good question. I don't know what the solid backing is made of or if it's water proof, it just looks solid in the pictures, it could be permeable. I didn't buy that type to see. Also I assume liquid could still seep around the edges.
 

Marie1234

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So it's been 2.5 days and the vet bed remains completely dry to the touch everywhere, even under my slightly leaky water bottle, with no extra liners, pee pads or water bottle pads being used. No smell. The poops are easy to clean up but the hay is totally imbedded and difficult to sweep up. I am going to wait until wash day (Saturday or Sunday) and see if the hay can be shaken, brushed and /or vacuumed out and then I will probably add some sort of kitchen set up to reduce the hay in the vet bed. Will update this post about wetness and smell in 2-3 days.
 
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Squibbles

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So it's been 2.5 days and the vet bed remains completely dry to the touch everywhere, even under my slightly leaky water bottle, with no extra liners, pee pads or water bottle pads being used. No smell. The poops are easy to clean up but the hay is totally imbedded and difficult to sweep up. I am going to wait until wash day (Saturday or Sunday) and see if the hay can be shaken, brushed and /or vacuumed out and then I will probably add some sort of kitchen set up to reduce the hay in the vet bed. Will update this post about wetness and smell in 2-3 days.

I am so glad you are posting your results. I really hope it works out well as I like fleece just fine but I do not sew and do not know anyone who does. While I have the fleeces weighted down it?s still an annoying process for me as I am a bit OCD. I?m constantly sweeping and the fleece tends to pull out from its corner points. Also, it would be nice to have extraneous bedding for laundry days!


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Marie1234

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Glad the post is useful to some. If you are OCD you would go nuts about the hay, it's so difficult to sweep up off the vet bed and my handheld vacuum doesn't pick up hay well at all, even off of a hard surface. You would definitely need a creative kitchen set up or maybe a 1x2 fleece under your hay racks that gets changed more often.

There is still no wetness anywhere at anytime, or bunching with vacuuming or sweeping, and no smell.
 

spy9doc

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My favorite hand vac for the cavy cage is the B&D 20v cordless vac (details below). In addition to having sufficient power, the particular feature that you want to look at closely is how the charger connects to the vac itself. Most of them that I've owned or examined have a flimsy connector that can easily become bent or simply fail. You can find one at a cheaper price than the one I like, but in this regard........you get what you pay for.

I have owned several hand vacs and invariably they would simply not last with the kind of use that ours gets. I own the previous model of this vac and have been very pleased with its performance. One can always locate a 20% off coupon for BBB and that brings the cost down to a competitive price. It picks up both poops and hay, and although the hay will clog the vac, it's super easy to unclog and to empty. I wash all the removable parts weekly as part of my cage clean process. One simply MUST empty any vac after each use or it will begin to accumulate nasty odors that will be emitted on the next use. :sick:

If you can physically get to a BBB store to look at the vacs, all the better so that you know what you're buying. Good luck with finding something that satisfies your needs!


(broken link removed)
 

dawnmb57

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Day one of vetbed and wood pellets....the pigggies certainly seem to like it. So far so good. If people are interested i can update this post with how things continue over the next several weeks.
View attachment 83929
What is vetbed?

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dawnmb57

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Mine is a Shark cordless 15.6 volt. It's terrible at picking up hay but picks up the poops just fine. So far I've only had to use it one day though so time will tell...
Does the sound bother them or do you take them out of the pen first?

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dawnmb57

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My favorite hand vac for the cavy cage is the B&D 20v cordless vac (details below). In addition to having sufficient power, the particular feature that you want to look at closely is how the charger connects to the vac itself. Most of them that I've owned or examined have a flimsy connector that can easily become bent or simply fail. You can find one at a cheaper price than the one I like, but in this regard........you get what you pay for.

I have owned several hand vacs and invariably they would simply not last with the kind of use that ours gets. I own the previous model of this vac and have been very pleased with its performance. One can always locate a 20% off coupon for BBB and that brings the cost down to a competitive price. It picks up both poops and hay, and although the hay will clog the vac, it's super easy to unclog and to empty. I wash all the removable parts weekly as part of my cage clean process. One simply MUST empty any vac after each use or it will begin to accumulate nasty odors that will be emitted on the next use. :sick:

If you can physically get to a BBB store to look at the vacs, all the better so that you know what you're buying. Good luck with finding something that satisfies your needs!


(broken link removed)
I've been thinking about a hand vac for a while as I have two rat pens and the one guinea pig pen to pick up poops from. I really appreciate all the details you've given on this. Would be so much work to take all the animals out first though so still not sure if it would be frightening. Did you say whether it is very loud?

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Marie1234

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What is vetbed?

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It's like a plush fleece, or sort of like a fleece rug with a pile height. It's used as dog and other animal beds especially for post surgical care and whelping apparently. It whisks away wetness and is supposed to be very durable.
 

Squibbles

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My favorite hand vac for the cavy cage is the B&D 20v cordless vac (details below). In addition to having sufficient power, the particular feature that you want to look at closely is how the charger connects to the vac itself. Most of them that I've owned or examined have a flimsy connector that can easily become bent or simply fail. You can find one at a cheaper price than the one I like, but in this regard........you get what you pay for.

I have owned several hand vacs and invariably they would simply not last with the kind of use that ours gets. I own the previous model of this vac and have been very pleased with its performance. One can always locate a 20% off coupon for BBB and that brings the cost down to a competitive price. It picks up both poops and hay, and although the hay will clog the vac, it's super easy to unclog and to empty. I wash all the removable parts weekly as part of my cage clean process. One simply MUST empty any vac after each use or it will begin to accumulate nasty odors that will be emitted on the next use. :sick:

If you can physically get to a BBB store to look at the vacs, all the better so that you know what you're buying. Good luck with finding something that satisfies your needs!


(broken link removed)
I will look into it thanks! Mine is a black and decker 15$ job I found at Walmart. It works well enough on everything BUT the poop. It smashes it into what ever surface it is on whether fleece or tile. Totally disgusting [emoji30]


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Marie1234

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My favorite hand vac for the cavy cage is the B&D 20v cordless vac (details below). In addition to having sufficient power, the particular feature that you want to look at closely is how the charger connects to the vac itself. Most of them that I've owned or examined have a flimsy connector that can easily become bent or simply fail. You can find one at a cheaper price than the one I like, but in this regard........you get what you pay for.

I have owned several hand vacs and invariably they would simply not last with the kind of use that ours gets. I own the previous model of this vac and have been very pleased with its performance. One can always locate a 20% off coupon for BBB and that brings the cost down to a competitive price. It picks up both poops and hay, and although the hay will clog the vac, it's super easy to unclog and to empty. I wash all the removable parts weekly as part of my cage clean process. One simply MUST empty any vac after each use or it will begin to accumulate nasty odors that will be emitted on the next use. :sick:

If you can physically get to a BBB store to look at the vacs, all the better so that you know what you're buying. Good luck with finding something that satisfies your needs!


(broken link removed)

I quickly looked and I can get this for $75 at Wal Mart in Canada, so that's great. Thank you for the information.
 

Squibbles

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I've been thinking about a hand vac for a while as I have two rat pens and the one guinea pig pen to pick up poops from. I really appreciate all the details you've given on this. Would be so much work to take all the animals out first though so still not sure if it would be frightening. Did you say whether it is very loud?

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Mine have grown accustomed to it. They were fearful at first but they got over it. It?s not extremely loud nor as loud as a stand up vacuum.
Although mine isn?t that particular model...


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Marie1234

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It did frighten them at first but they are growing used to it. We do a lot of smoothies in this house and I think they got used to some loud noises from the blender, plus I had to vacuum around their change 2-3x a week when they were on bedding.
 
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