Fleece Fleece or bedding? And cage size!

[KristenMatejka]

I have tried both fleece, bedding, and a mixture of both with my pigs. some like bedding while others like the fleece. Should I just have half and half in the cage? I have six females and two babies in one cage together! Both babies are male so they will be moving into a cage with their dad within the week so it will just be my six girls! Expanding the girls cage and I wanted to get everyone's opinion on a cage size I should prepare to build! I know the recommended size but I want my girls to have tons of space!
Also a question with fleece....how often should I clean it and can i just the yards of it from walmart from the cloth area they have? Some of the girls chew on it and rip pieces up!

 

[KristenMatejka]

There's a picture of the girls and some of the babies! This was for moving them from their cage to their daytime playarea for floor time!

 

[Hhbean]

Wow! Love your basketfull of piggies! I think you should build it as big as you can! Not sure what to do about them eating the fleece, that's the only thing my guys won't eat!

 

[KristenMatejka]

Thanks! The four adult females shown there were rescues and I think the most recent one I got was Mocha (the one in the very upper right hand corner) and we've now had her for 3 months. For the six girls I was going to build a 3 by 6 grid bottom and add a second layer...thinking about the size of that one though

 

[bpatters]

If they're eating the fleece, then you'll have to use something else for bedding. Any kind of material they eat can cause intestinal blockages, and most pigs don't recover from those.

But are you sure you have fleece and not flannel? They're easy to confuse, and flannel shreds and rips much easier than fleece.

 

[KristenMatejka]

I bought a fleece blanket and also some yards of fleece for them and one of my females Cocoa just chews on it and rips it apart. Nothing I do will get her to leave her alone. She'll pretty much chew and eat anything. I've bought and made countless toys to distract her but I always catch her chewing on it so I switched back to aspen.