Advice to Clean a Large Cage Faster?

[A Guinea Pig]

Hi all! Does anyone have any advice to help me clean the piggies' cage more quickly?

For context, I have three girls who live in an 8-by-5 C&C cage. The cage is floored completely in fleece. To clean it I shake out all the poops and hay onto the coroplast and then use a full-size broom to sweep it into a massive trash bag. Then I just use F10 to wipe it down before putting new fleece in.

This just takes a REALLY long time to do. It's absolutely worth it for my piggies but I do want to know if any of y'all have suggestions to make the process quicker for me.

(I do ask also if there is a problem with having them in such big of a big cage now, and then I needed to put them in even a 2 by 8 in the far future if that would cause problems.)

Thank you!

 

[Piggies&buns]

To be honest, it sounds like you’re doing what most of us do. Perhaps some use a vacuum rather than sweeping which may speed the process up as long as you have a vacuum which can handle it and it doesn’t scare the piggies.
I mean, I use disposable bedding but I get in with a brush and sweep it up and dispose of it, wipe, refill etc. My boys are separated but they have 3x3 c&c cages each so I’m essentially cleaning a 6x3 and I can do both cages in about 10 minutes.

No it’s not a problem having them in a big cage, it’s lovely that you can provide that but it is of course does mean cleaning is going to be more time consuming.

So going to a 2x8 is still way beyond what they need so from a space point of view, no it’s not a problem. However any time you change cage size you change territory, so will cause them to go into two weeks of re establishing their bond, and they’ll be doing so in less space than they are used to. You can minimise the disruption by using soiled bedding in the new cage but it is still something they will go through to some extent (the amount of disruption it causes depends very much on the piggies)

 

[fluffysal]

A lot of us use bath mats, pee pads etc on popular potty areas and just sweep or vacuum the rest of the fleece. I also have a patchwork of smaller bottom fleece liners. The top layer gets changed every day or two but the bottom can last a week to ten days as I can change out small areas earlier if needed. One of my separated boys uses the whole cage as a potty area and drinks vast amounts of water so this saves me changing everything daily. The other definitely prefers to potty on his pee pads so the largest fleeces go on his side.

 

[Merab]

My setup is similar to @fluffysal .
I use 2 fleece liners on the base and noodle mats on top.
I change the noodle mats regularly and find the base liners can last up to 2 weeks.
I roll up the mats and tip them into a waste bag - shake out the hay and poops then pop the mats into a laundry bag.
A dustpan and brush deals with whatever is left in the cage.
A mat only clean takes up to half an hour, a full clean takes nearer an hour but some of that time is just watching and talking to the piggies.

 

[flowerfairy]

I have half the cage with fleece on the floor and fleece mats on top in high use areas (eg under their ikea doll's bed) and the other half with two cat litter trays of hay and a large hay rack.

Not sure it would make cleaning out any different though.

How glorious to have all that amount of space to work with.

 

[Apples]

I have a similar sized cage, it's wonderful watching the behaviour of the piggies in all that space! I had to move my piggies to a 3*5 C&C temporarily a while back and they adjusted just fine to the smaller size (I told them they weren't allowed to complain because many piggies would think their "small" cage was huge!).

I find it easier to handle many smaller pieces of fleece than a few bigger ones, so I use a total of 10 smaller liners to cover the base of my cage, and then I have pee pads underneath every hidey as well.
I spot clean twice per day. I brush off the worst hairs/hay/poops with a small rubber brush onto a dustpan. Any liners that don't need washing yet simply stay in place. If a liner needs washing I lift the liner up and shake/brush off some more above the cage where I just lifted up the liner. Liner goes in the laundry bin, sweep up any poops and debris on the cage floor with a broom, if necessary wipe down the cage with just some warm water and in goes the fresh liner.

Some pieces need changing every other day, but other pieces only need washing once a month. That means I never do a full cage clean and the spot cleaning + changing dirty areas takes no more than 15-20 minutes.

 

[Roselina]

I have a 5x2 and I tend to do half one day and the other half the next day - I use washable pads 1mx1m and a variety of fleece and vet bed on top - the hay trays get cleaned daily and I have a fleece in the bottom of each - I use 2 fleece pads where they have their food scattered and change those daily and they catch any drips from the water bottles. I’d say it takes about 15 mins but is usually longer as I’m watching them play in the new stuff ! I use an unscented baby wipe to clean the coroplast underneath .