I have used fleece for quite awhile now for my then 8 and now 7 pigs. But the way I use it is a little different than what I have read and may not be how others may want to use it but I am going to try to describe it here just in case.
My 7 pigs have an entire bedroom to themselves. They have cages but the cages have openings in the sides so they can free roam the entire room anytime they want. So I have 2 cages that have fleece and then other setups for another cage and a box.
For the main cage where the food, water, part of the hay and some pigloo's are kept is setup like this. The bottom layer I use newspaper on the coroplast floor. Then I lay down a bag of Aspen for the next layer. Then on top of the Aspen I lay another layer of newspaper. Then I lay the fleece on top of the newspaper.
The fleece and newspaper get changed every night when they get fed. The Aspen gets changed at least once a month along with the bottom layer of paper and the entire caged then gets scrubbed. This works well for me as I just take the fleece outside and shake it out before washing it and the newspaper I get free from the recycling center who gives it to me.
In the secondary cage I use fleece and newspapers and that also gets changed every night when they get fed. They do not use this cage as much so the newspaper is enough to absorb what little comes through.
Now I have 2 other areas that they frequent. A partial coroplast cage and a hay box that the 50lb of hay comes in. The partial coroplast cage is where I put more hay (usually oat hay as they just love this stuff) and I line this with just papers as they do not seem to dirty this much if any. It gets changed anyway every day or every other day.
The box I cut 2 openings in it so they could come in and out. I then cut a small piece of coroplast to fit the bottom of the box and I place it in the bottom of the box and layer newspaper on it and then place more hay (usually the timothy) in it and close the top. This also gets changed about every other day.
What I find interesting is that not one of them has ever gone anywhere but on the fleece or newspaper. They have the whole carpeted room they could go but they don't. They just seem to know all on their own where to go and where not to go. The only problems is that they occasionally will kick some of their poo's out of the cage onto the floor.
I will try to get some new pictures on here soon.
My 7 pigs have an entire bedroom to themselves. They have cages but the cages have openings in the sides so they can free roam the entire room anytime they want. So I have 2 cages that have fleece and then other setups for another cage and a box.
For the main cage where the food, water, part of the hay and some pigloo's are kept is setup like this. The bottom layer I use newspaper on the coroplast floor. Then I lay down a bag of Aspen for the next layer. Then on top of the Aspen I lay another layer of newspaper. Then I lay the fleece on top of the newspaper.
The fleece and newspaper get changed every night when they get fed. The Aspen gets changed at least once a month along with the bottom layer of paper and the entire caged then gets scrubbed. This works well for me as I just take the fleece outside and shake it out before washing it and the newspaper I get free from the recycling center who gives it to me.
In the secondary cage I use fleece and newspapers and that also gets changed every night when they get fed. They do not use this cage as much so the newspaper is enough to absorb what little comes through.
Now I have 2 other areas that they frequent. A partial coroplast cage and a hay box that the 50lb of hay comes in. The partial coroplast cage is where I put more hay (usually oat hay as they just love this stuff) and I line this with just papers as they do not seem to dirty this much if any. It gets changed anyway every day or every other day.
The box I cut 2 openings in it so they could come in and out. I then cut a small piece of coroplast to fit the bottom of the box and I place it in the bottom of the box and layer newspaper on it and then place more hay (usually the timothy) in it and close the top. This also gets changed about every other day.
What I find interesting is that not one of them has ever gone anywhere but on the fleece or newspaper. They have the whole carpeted room they could go but they don't. They just seem to know all on their own where to go and where not to go. The only problems is that they occasionally will kick some of their poo's out of the cage onto the floor.
I will try to get some new pictures on here soon.