Cage Advice with water bottles

[Guinea Pig Papa]

There are actually special bags you can get to wash those particular items to contain the fur. I've seen them mentioned several times here on the forum, but of course I can't remember what they are.

Someone will chime in soon and tell us, I'm sure. I should probably be using them myself!

Found em!

(broken link removed)

 

[Smileandnod]

I have a front load washer.

Yes, there is some hair left in the washer after washing guinea pig stuff...but honestly less than when I wash my short hair dog's or long hair cats' stuff.

I of course wash their stuff separately. Then take a paper towel to do a quick wipe of the drum, seal, and door. Usually I also either run a quick wash or extra spin cycle after if I'm in a hurry. Otherwise, I run a clean washer cycle to make it spotless.

 

[ItsaZoo]

Check if you can add an extra rinse to your wash cycle, that may help get more hair out.

 

[inks88]

So the hair in the washer is enough of a problem that there are special products. Smileandnod that's what I do too, wipe the gasket and door.

We got the pigs today. This morning when I was filling the bottles before the pigs arrived I really freaked out because the glass bottle would not work. The plastic one however by some magic did. But since I am neurotic I got a third water bottle. LOL I am really impressed with that one, it is plastic, was on clearance, but is seems to have a spring in the nozzle where the balls are, very nice feel to it. So now we have 3 bottles.

The piggies are great. The cage is a mess. I did not have time to get the fleece ready so used paper bedding and it's just a mess. The piggies don't mind. They were way more relaxed at the foster moms cage but they are running around, it's only been 2 hours. They had their veggies, are eating hay, have sniffed their toys. I hope they will eat pellets and drink some water soon. But how will I notice the drinking when we have 3 water bottles?????

 

[inks88]

They are hiding under the loft, so I put their food in there

 

[SSLee]

@inks88, your piggy under the ramp is really cute and I hope they are a little more comfortable now. I remembered my two took approximately 1 week before being more adventuresome.

As to how you can tell the amount of water being drunk, you can put some kind of marker (I cut up a Post-It note into skinny strips) at the current water level on the bottle as a starting reference point.

 

[inks88]

They pee a lot so they must be drinking. I have not seen the change in water bottle levels. The paper bedding only lasted a day and now we are changing the fleece and the reusable bed pads every day. I need to make pee pads ASAP. The Zorb fabric is coming tomorrow. The fist set of fleece I made with microfiber bath towels seems to work, fleece is dry but the towel is soaked and heavy.

They seem to be eating the hay at night too. One is chewing the plastic tree stump house. We gave them 3 toys. They are eating from my daughters hand and she can pet them. It's not as scary anymore.