Bedding Bedding Question

[Stunny99]

Hey all,

I am new here and have had 2 male piggies for just over a year now. I recently purchased a large C&C cage for them and hope they enjoy it.

I have a bedding question that hopefully someone can answer. I am not able to use fleece due to the fact that I don't have regular access to laundry.

For the past year, my pigs have been living in seperate cages that were side by side and I have been using Carefresh. They seem to enjoy the type of bedding and rarely eat it unless it was by accident. I wish to stay with this type of bedding but I am also considering alternatives due to the fact that carefresh is incredibly expensive and now I have a 30"x70" cage to fill. I fill it because they are in no way potty trained and I doubt they will ever be. I want to keep the soft texture and not really interested in hard wood chips. Due to my busy lifestyle, I can only change them every 4/5 days and I never spot clean. Carefresh always seemed to take care of the smell.

Keep in mind I live in Rhode Island when making suggestions.

Thank you for all your help!

 

[schavarry]

Maybe you could try making your own bedding? If you search there's a thread for it on here...

 

[Stunny99]

Thanks schavarry, but that seems pretty time consuming. Time I do not have. When I get home I just like to watch TV and hang out with the piggies.

 

[Onetwo]

What do you mean you do not have regular access to laundry?

If you have a local laundry mat and 2 cage changes of fleece and towels (or uhaul blankets) you would only need to do 2 loads every 2 weeks (two loads if they are small washers/dryers).

It would be soft and cheaper and not take up too much time/energy. It takes me about 20 minutes to sweep my piggies cage once a day and I do it while I am feeding them so that time includes hay and pellet refills as well as scratches.

There arn't really many other cheaper alternatives. Unless you want to buy your carefresh bedding in bulk (if there is such a thing) online...

 

[Stunny99]

I was able to get a large bag of alpine chips. they seem to like it and it saved me at least $6.

 

[kananaka]

I have the exact same cage size you do. Even going with shavings the largest bag I could find of alpine chips lasts me about 2 and 1/2 cleanings (@ about $14 a bag). Around $35 a month. So much cheaper to go with fleece which I am switching to soon (I have the fleece and the Uhaul pads just came last night).

How often can u do laundry?

I did find out petco sells carefresh in bulk Carefresh Pet Bedding - Carefresh Small Animal Bedding Available Online at petco.com . Hope this helps

 

[Petlovr]

The absolute cheapest bedding, in the long run, is fleece. If you can't sew, or know anyone that does sew, to make your own cage liners, you can always fold the fleece around the Uhaul pads and weight the corners down with bricks or rocks. Joanns fabrics has all thier fleece on sale, and plain solid colors are fairly cheap. You should even have some left over for hideys-just clip to a bent grid. Remember, material is sold by the yard, so 1 yard=3feet. You could make 3 or 4 liners, and go to the laudromat once a month.

Another option is here:https://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/bedding/71005-new-bedding-discoverd-works-amazing.html I haven't tried it yet, but I'm thinking of trying it for my kitchen area. I have to change the carefresh in there every 3 days.