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C&C C & C kitchen needs daily cleaning??

Platypus

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Cavy Slave
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Apr 29, 2019
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Hey, first post so let me know if I've managed to put this in the wrong spot!

I've had my guinea pigs for just over a week, and switched them to a C & C cage a few days ago (2x4 grids on the bottom level with a "kitchen" full of Clean & Cozy paper bedding, and an offset 2x2 loft with two ramps up top). I have fleece over towels both upstairs and on most of the bottom until I can pick up some uhaul blankets, and that's working great- I don't think they've peed on the fleece at all, and stray poops are easy to deal with.

My problem is the kitchen. They're doing exactly what they're supposed to do since I put their hay rack and food dish there, and peeing and pooping in the paper bedding, but I've had to completely empty it out every single night. The bedding is totally soaked in a few large areas, which I don't want them sitting in, and the smell is noticeable. While I'm very happy that they're peeing where I want them to instead of all over the cage, at this rate bedding is going to get insanely expensive.

I keep seeing once or twice a week as the most common frequency for changing the bedding in the kitchens- am I just being nutty, or do my pigs pee more than most? Is there something other than that bedding that would be worth trying? I don't necessarily want to put fleece there too and wind up confusing them about where to pee, but this is a little excessive.
 

Sparrow.

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Hemp bedding is so much better in terms of odour control and it doesn't get "soaked" as quickly. You can buy it in bulk for very cheap. It is mostly advertised for horses and chickens but it's perfectly safe and my boys are loving it (used to popcorn the moment it was poured into the cage)! I switched them to fleece as it is easier to manage but when I put out the kitchen in their c&c cage, I will definitely be using hemp for it again. Cannot recommend it enough!
 

thistlewriter

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For my boys' kitchen, I use pine pellets from my local Tractor Supply store; they capture the odor really well, but I do change them out every few days because the hay does start to stink. When I was pet-sitting two other pigs recently, I used paper pellets from Petsmart. It would be too expensive for ordinary use (since I had to use 20 lbs to cover up the bottom of the cage), but it never stank even though I never changed it during the two-week period.
 

bpatters

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You don't have to dump the pellets when the hay starts to stink -- just sweep up the hay and throw it out.
 

thistlewriter

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You don't have to dump the pellets when the hay starts to stink -- just sweep up the hay and throw it out.

Usually when the hay starts to stink, the majority of the pellets are sawdust, so I pretty much have to dump it out anyway. Lately I've been putting a thin layer of pellets on the bottom and changing it out once a day or every other day, which has been working pretty well.
 

lunarminx

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I just line a box with newspaper, cover with hay off and on during the day and it gets dumped every other day. The only time it smells is if it doesn't get dumped by day 3.
 

Platypus

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Thanks for the advice! I ended up switching to the So Phresh crumbled paper bedding and that's working ok for now, although they've had a ton of drama this past week and seem to have responded in part by pooping pretty much everywhere. So hopefully they'll go back to using that as their bathroom once things settle down some. I might try wood pellets when this bag is empty, since so many people seem to like that.

I'm also down to one pig instead of two in the main cage for the next two weeks, so I'll have to see what works when they're both using it again.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk
 
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