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Cleaning Cage suddenly smells

BeckJean

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Hi, so I have had my 2 boars for almost 3 months now so I'm estimating their age to be around 6months. For the most part I have been using carefresh natural bedding and up until this point I haven't had an issue with their cage smelling with a single weekly clean. All of the sudden I did a cage clean and the cage is smelling worse in 2 days than it did in a week and I'm not sure why.

I'm hoping for advice on odor control because the only place I can keep them is my bedroom (due to other pets in the house and other people in the house who are allergic) which has little ventilation as it has no windows.

I did try fleece for about 2 weeks awhile back but I had issues with the wicking so I stopped using it. I've read on here that people use wood pellets which help a lot with odor but is there a way to use the pellets without putting fleece on top? Or does anybody have any other suggestions on the odor? I'm hoping to avoid having to do multiple cleanings a week as the carfresh gets expensive because at this rate I'd have to do 3 cleanings a week.

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bpatters

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The odor is probably boar stank rather than an unclean cage.

Boars may re-mark a completely clean cage. It may help to throw several small pieces of fleece in the cage, then when you next clean it, put those uncleaned pieces of fleece back in the cage. The familiar smell may fool them into believing that they don't need to mark it up again.

If you provide a kitchen area, you can probably get by without using fleece over the wood pellets. Without a kitchen area, they'll just drag their veggies through the pellets, which turn to sawdust with use. However, they're the absolute best at odor control, and will last a VERY long time. But they won't do anything for boar stank.
 

BeckJean

Active Member
Cavy Slave
Joined
May 6, 2021
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Joined
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Messages
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The odor is probably boar stank rather than an unclean cage.

Boars may re-mark a completely clean cage. It may help to throw several small pieces of fleece in the cage, then when you next clean it, put those uncleaned pieces of fleece back in the cage. The familiar smell may fool them into believing that they don't need to mark it up again.

If you provide a kitchen area, you can probably get by without using fleece over the wood pellets. Without a kitchen area, they'll just drag their veggies through the pellets, which turn to sawdust with use. However, they're the absolute best at odor control, and will last a VERY long time. But they won't do anything for boar stank.
I'll definitely try keeping something that smells like them in the cage after cleaning and see if that works.

I also want to try the pellets as well. So if I'm reading what you said correctly they will be fine walking and laying right on top of the pellets without something covering them? Just make sure I have a separate eating area for hay/food/water with a different bedding type?

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bpatters

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Yep. The separate area is for the veggies. The hay and pellets don't matter.
 
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