Bedding looking for washable alternative to fleece

[kimmaurizio]

about 2 months ago i got my 3 young nieces (ages 1,3 and 4 years) a gpig, originally I wanted a hamster something small they could learn to take care of as I am home schooling the 2 older ones. We ended up with Carlos the guinea pig because my mom thought they would kill a hamster when they tried to hold it. So i did my research learned all i could about their care ect. I finished building his c&c cage 2 days ago it is a 4x2 with a 1x2 hay loft 2 "stairs" instead of a ramp and 2 bricks 1 to bridge the gap between the bottom stair and the bottom of the cage and 1 so he could reach his water bottle.
In any case we decided to use fleece as the bedding because i dont have 40 dollars a month to buy carefresh or wood shavings or any of that other stuff but my mom wont clean the cage and im only here 4 days a week and 90 % of that time is taken up by 3 screaming children so i dont have time to sweep/ vacuum fleece every day while it moves all around and then remove it every 2 days to wash it and what not. So i need an alternative i was thinking of using something like astro turf or the green carpet looking stuff often use in reptile enclosure. something that can be hosed down with some vinegar and water hung to dry and put back to get rid of the urine and that would be easily vacuumed a couple times a day. I do realize that asroturf is neither absorbent or safe for a piggy to eat ( as im sure he would chew it ) and there in lies the problem i dont know what i can use that would be short enough he wouldnt chew it and would either absorb the urine or at the very least drain into towels or pee pads or w.e i put under it. i should also mention that the tray is vinyl flooring his hay loft is coroplast but i coudlnt find a full sheet for the bottom lvl

 

[Amalee]

Have you thought about keeping two or three blankets of fleece? That way, you don't have to do the laundry immediately, but every two or three weeks, just keep the dirty fleece in a garbage bag. Also, if you have the proper absorbent layer (U-Haul pad) you should only be needing to wash it every 5 days.

 

[My_3_LittlePigs]

Idk what you could use as an alternative that could be hosed down and still be compfy for ur piggies. I do have an idea though. What if you got extra fleece and brought a laundry bag with you. That way you could just switch it out with clean fleece. Shake off the old fleece outside and bring home the dirty stuff to wash. If ur only there 4 days a week, is ur mom able to feed them their daily veggies? Another idea would be to make their main cage at ur house and bring them to ur nieces for visits when you go. That way you wouldn't have to use your homeschool time on piggy maintenance.

 

[kimmaurizio]

yes he gets his veggies every day he has a large food bowl and a ton of hay so i just change those when needed but the 3 yo insists on giving him his veggies everyday. she is a good piggy mom her favorite part of the day is feeding him since hes not hand tamed enough for her to hold him yet . as for buying more fleece i have 1 pieces but it is time consuming pulling it out washing down the cage and then laying and clipping the new fleece in

also just to be clear yes we only have 1 pig and i do know this is not ideal but he came alone he is about a year old and has always been by him self from what i understand he seems perfectly happy and well adjusted he loves my 3 yo niece and interacts with her frequently threw the cage bars and he has a pillow in his cage to cuddle when he sleeps

 

[Inle_Rabbit]

I think the best solution would be fleece flippers. They would create a snug and easy surface that could be vacuumed off. They are also easier to change.

Having two sets of fleece or fleece flippers would be ideal that way you could wash one and use one in the cage at the same time. If you are there 4 times a week that should be enough times a week to properly clean the cage at least once. With one guinea pig in a 2x4 it shouldn't need a full clean out all that often.

As you have the guinea pig longer you will find that cleaning the cage gets faster. I have 5 guinea pigs in a double decker 2x7 cage and it takes me about 20 minutes to clean it. I do vacuum up the poo once a day though.

Read more about fleece flippers here:

http://www.guineapigmarket.com/about-fleece-flippers

http://www.guineapigmarket.com/fleece-flippers

 

[Traysea]

Some thoughts…

Where are you located? Can you get horse stall pellets?
Pine pellets for horse stalls plus some shavings (or care fresh on top) for comfort, would be less than $40 a month and would last a long time in a 2x4 cage with one pig. Probably like 2-3 weeks and up depending on how you maintain it. If you scoop out the wettest areas and stir it around whenever possible. You can get them for around $7 for a 40lb bag (you would need at least one 40 lb bag to fill a 2x4 cage and one package of shavings or care fresh) If you purchase the aspen horse stall shavings at the same place as the pellets it could be as low as...
First month: large bale of aspen shavings $8-$12 and (2) 40lb bags of pellets $14.00 making total initial cost $27 the first month.
The bale will last for around 4 cage cleaning since you are only mixing it with the pellets so then the following trip to the store you would only need two more bags of pellets will be $14.

So around $40 for at least 2 months, maybe even longer depending on how your piggy goes to the bathroom and how often you scoop and stir the pellets.

Another option would be to use the fleece the same way you are considering the astro turf, because either way there will be 3 days worth of poop laying there. Spot cleaning is for odor control mostly anyway. Clipping fleece is very time consuming, sew, full cage fleece pads or flippers or home made full cage flippers would be the fastest to change and clean out. You can also stack in several layers of fleece and padding so that you could pick up the first layer of fleece and uhual, and the lower layers should still be clean. Using multiple layers of padding (as long as the pee doesn't get down that far) would mean your coro would stay cleaner. This won't work if you don't protect your heavy wetting areas though because if he pees heavy in one corner it's going to soak thru more layers). Maybe in that case you can put a puppy pad in that area between the layers.

Any which way you look at it though they cage is going to need maintenance (and I agree with Inle_rabbit it gets faster and easier the more you do it, I could clean my 100% fleece, 2x3 with patio with 1 pig in about 10 minutes including water and food etc).

Another option would be to add a kitchen area of pine pellets and do the fleece in the rest of the cage. I think you can go 3 days without spot cleaning with just the one pig in a 2x4 on a fleece cage with large pellet kitchen.

 

[kimmaurizio]

right now there is nothing in his hayloft but hay i simply didnt have the time to put down fleece and i didnt have any news paper on hand even tho i have a stack of it at home
he pees heavily in the corner closest to his water bottle if i put a litter pan with pellets there whats the likely hood of him using it apposed to him just peeing in a different area?
i need to go finish fixing the cage i made it so that the front of the cage was where the stairs were but when i tryed to clean it just now found it was entirely to hard to get under and around the stairs and they are wired to the cage so i cant move them out of the way so i have to rewire the entire lid to make it open the other way

 

[kimmaurizio]

the first image is his cage as it sits right now the second is just carlos cuddling his pillow pay no mind to the giant mess on the table between the kids and building the cage the room was a disaster that day

 

[Traysea]

Do you have room to do away with the loft and just make it a 2x5? It will cut down on your time and mess.

 

[My_3_LittlePigs]

yes he gets his veggies every day he has a large food bowl and a ton of hay so i just change those when needed but the 3 yo insists on giving him his veggies everyday. she is a good piggy mom her favorite part of the day is feeding him since hes not hand tamed enough for her to hold him yet . as for buying more fleece i have 1 pieces but it is time consuming pulling it out washing down the cage and then laying and clipping the new fleece in

also just to be clear yes we only have 1 pig and i do know this is not ideal but he came alone he is about a year old and has always been by him self from what i understand he seems perfectly happy and well adjusted he loves my 3 yo niece and interacts with her frequently threw the cage bars and he has a pillow in his cage to cuddle when he sleeps

Your piggy is such a cutie. I know what you mean.. with kids around piggies never go hungry. My kids are always giving them veggies. 2 of my piggies interact through their cage bars too, my other piggy is not that brave. You said you read about piggy care so you probably already know but male pigs need their privates cleaned out cause they get stuff stuck down there. Maybe someone can post a link cause I'm not able to at the moment. Just a little tip. Guinea pigs are pretty high maintenance compared to other pets. I bought my first one on a complete whim then came home and researched about them. Backwards, I know. Then I had to build a c&c cage cause I got a pet store cage originally. Then I bought her a friend. I really enjoy it though. They are great pets. After I adopted my 3rd piggy my cage cleaning more than doubled. After you establish a routine it gets easier. You just have to find what works for you. The layers in the cage is a great idea. And you don't have to sew everything, you can just lay down the layers, that's what I do for now. Laying down something more absorbent where he goes the most would be helpful. If you find that he goes by his water bottle mostly then maybe the kitchen would be a good idea for you. Mine don't go most in their kitchen area, but I hear most pigs do.

 

[kimmaurizio]

i actually had no idea he needed to be cleaned threw everything i read from nail triming to what and how much veggies to give him nothing once said if i had a male i had to wash him there it mentioned bathing him every few months but when i was 12 i bathed my long haired gpig because he got poop in his fur and he ended up dieing from a cold so im a bit weary on the bathing thing
i dont have room to make it any longer the cage is in what is really supposed to be a closet with no doors and if i make it longer i wont be able to get it out of or in the closet when i need to
as for him being brave the only person he will go to is mia ( the 3 yo) every one else he runs from squealing he bit the 4 yo i think he just wanted a taste because he left a bruise but didnt break the skin. But all animals love me even the crotchety old cat who pretty much couldn't care less about any one but if mia is with in ear shot and calls him he comes running

 

[kimmaurizio]

i did turn his cage around put the opening oposit the stairs so i could clean aroudn them used the ret of the care fresh i had about 1/3 of a large bag and put a double layer of fleece over the area the care fresh didnt cover i have puppy pads a home i can lay between the fleece tomorrow puppy pads are pretty large and cheep could probably cover the whole cage with just 2 or 3 on the bottom and 1 folded in half in the hayloft

 

[Princess_Piggie]

Actually, just so you know, guinea pigs don't get 'colds' as humans do, they get URI (upper respiratory infection), so your previous guinea pig will have died as the result of something else.

I use just regular fleece, not flippers, with a towel and then newspaper underneath as the absorbent layer. It gets smelly after about 6 days, because I have a corner litter box which I change daily, and that's where they do their main 'business'. I spot clean the cage daily obviously, and change out the newspaper too, but the whole thing only needs changing every 5-6-7 days. I also have two different fleeces so as when one's being cleaned, the other one can just go straight in.

 

[kimmaurizio]

the vet said he had pneumonia from getting a chill but i couldnt spell pneumonia when i typed it kept spelling it wrong so i gave up
my parents had to go to harbor fright for somthing i asked them to see if they sell furniture blankets like those at u haul if not u haul is only round the corner and they are 8 dollars

 

[Princess_Piggie]

Just make sure they're the same material as Uhaul, because most furniture blankets are not made of the same material.

 

[My_3_LittlePigs]

I found a link for you to check out. It's not a bath, it's different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-M0XOddxPI