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Bedding For Guinea Pigs - Overview

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Fitch is very similar to care fresh,but it only comes in white.it is a 20kg bale retails at approx £20 a bale.you can buy it from amazon or the Fitch website,it is very absoerbent.
 
Never used fleece before just newspaper and hay as mine are outside piggies:no: They are very well wrapped up for the winter.:D They are in a double decker hutch and have decided/discovered to venture downstairs (down ramp?) in the last few months:yahoo:. I am just a bit concerned that in the winter the floor of the downstairs area will become wet as it is directly onto the grass:doh:. I don't think paper will be absorbent enough with the rain and it will be a bit damp.:eek: I was wondering whether to get some fleece cage liners made (not by me I'm hopeless with a sewing machine!:lose:) and then line the ground with newspapers and then the fleece on top. That way I could change it a lot easier than I do now. :nod: Can anyone help please?:ple: Any advice welcome!
 
Hi, might sound very silly but whoever uses fleece can you please tell me how to keep it down flat, my pigs love finding a way underneath it.

thanks
 
You UK guys have so many bedding options! I looked up a few of the mentioned kinds and found that most aren't available to me, and the ones that are would need to be shipped internationally. I live in the US and it seems like my options are either Carefresh or fleece. I don't like wood shavings and all non-carefresh paper products I've tried have been dusty and don't stop odors as well. Carefresh is getting very expensive to keep buying for a 2x6 C&C cage! My local piggie rescue is adamant that fleece bedding is a bad option because it's unrealistically time-consuming to keep clean. I do like the convenience of Carefresh being disposable (plus one day shipping on Amazon) but I'm not made of money and it's a considerable expense
 
you could have two grids as a kitchen area,with bedding and fleece in the 4x2 bit of cage,that works well for me ,use hand held vac to collect poops !,on the top 6x2,i have hay loft and fleece on the bottom 6x2 part,with four piggies and that is manageable.
 
Hi all I'm thinking of getting Tumblefresh for my piggies it says dust free and safe but I just wanted to double check is it a good safe option for Guinea Pigs ?
Any advice would be great :)
Kind regards Donna
 
I haven't heard of Tumblefresh but it looks like Carefresh. I find Carefresh too expensive and no more absorbent than anything else.
 
Phew I just got through reading this whole thread to make sure I didn't miss anything here... seems like about half use disposable bedding and half use some type of fleece/reusable padding.

As NatalieGee mentioned here in the US we have far fewer options for disposable bedding... I have two ideas that haven't been mentioned here yet. The things most easy for me to get are sawdust from the stable I ride at, bales of straw from the feed store, and wood pellets for heating wood stoves.

I know it is a concern for sawdust to be too dusty, but in the barn when we put it down, we take the hose and spritz it with water just slightly. This keeps it from getting dusty and the 'wee' (we say pee in the states but I like your word better lol!) is absorbed very well. As long as you mix it around it does not feel damp to touch. So I'm wondering if that same thing could work with pigs just on a tiny scale, like using a bottle with a spritzer on the top to just mist the clean saw dust and then mix it up.

Also I think it would not be as absorbent but could straw be used with something underneath it? It seems like it would be nice for them to burrow in and you could add more during cold weather. We have very cold winters where I live and we keep our house at only 60-65 F so I thought extra straw would help keep my future piggies warm in my drafty old house.

Last is hardwood wood pellets which I'm on the fence about because it seems not a very environmentally friendly option, whereas sawdust and straw are by products of other things, hardwood is not as sustainable as it doesn't grow back very fast.

What do you all think of those three things? If none of those, I will likely try fleece and towels since I have some unused lengths of fleece left from when I had pet rats (and I ended up using Carefresh, but their cage was much smaller than a pig cage so didn't take very much bedding to fill it). I think using Carefresh bedding is not an affordable option for guinea pigs and the only other readily available thing near me is pine shavings.
 
Personally I would love to use fleece as my guinea pigs bedding and I have tried it before but as I still live with my parents my mum doesn't like me putting it in the washing. I also don't have enough time to be cleaning them out everyday and I also keep the pigs in a shed so it just doesn't work for me.

I also have used shredded paper as my dad is able to get big bags for free at work. I found that they were quite good and really soft for the pigs feet but the only thing is that it got soggy quite quickly.

I am currently using wood shavings which are very handy. I am able to get a huge bag of them for only €9 and they are dust extracted and pine. I clean them out once a week and I find that it doesn't smell.

I just have a few questions:
Is pine alright for woodshavings?
Would it be better for me to go back to shredded paper?
Any other advice in terms of using fleece?

Thanks
 
Great question! Guinea pig respiratory systems are so fragile that sawdust is out of the picture, even spritzed I'm afraid. Straw is unfortunately too hard and stalky for piggies, who are at risk of hay pokes. You could, however, use big mounds of soft hay (so not timothy, more like orchard grass?) on top of shavings (pine is okay, as long as it's kiln-dried and almost no oils remain); it also keeps your little ones nice and warm. Hardwood pellets with fleece on top are a pretty good option -- I've seen some people stretch a bag to six weeks or more on guineapigcages -- but are very heavy when wet (I use them in my litter trays).

Use the option that's easiest for you! You can always try something else in future.
 
Great question! Guinea pig respiratory systems are so fragile that sawdust is out of the picture, even spritzed I'm afraid. Straw is unfortunately too hard and stalky for piggies, who are at risk of hay pokes. You could, however, use big mounds of soft hay (so not timothy, more like orchard grass?) on top of shavings (pine is okay, as long as it's kiln-dried and almost no oils remain); it also keeps your little ones nice and warm. Hardwood pellets with fleece on top are a pretty good option -- I've seen some people stretch a bag to six weeks or more on guineapigcages -- but are very heavy when wet (I use them in my litter trays).

Use the option that's easiest for you! You can always try something else in future.
Thanks! Yes I may need to experiment to find the best option for me and the piglets. I like the idea of fleece over hardwood if it lasts such a long time (besides washing the fleece of course), but I also want them to have something soft and warm to snuggle in.

Do you think bales of hay of the type given to horses would be suitable? I can get that for less than $10 USD for a whole bale, and then they could have as much as they want, instead of paying more than that for a little bag of it from the store.
 
Just check the hay is soft enough -- horse hay usually is, as they can be fussier than livestock! I recommend that if you go for fleece try to have some way to contain the hay; for instance a large cardboard box or cat litter tray that you fill with wood pellets and put hay on top. That way you won't go crazy trying to get hay seeds etc off the fleece -- the litter in the tray won't last as long as they'll spend a lot of time doing their business in there, but you can dump and replace as needed.
 
Hi guys,
Thank you this feed is really helpful.
I have a quick question though... I use finacard for my African pigmy hedgehog. Is this any good for guinea pigs? It's a recycled card mix which is good for sensitive feet and lungs. Also the chunks are bigger and less likey to get stuck in orifices
It hasn' been mentioned here so I'm assuming not but always worth asking :)
 
Hi guys,
Thank you this feed is really helpful.
I have a quick question though... I use finacard for my African pigmy hedgehog. Is this any good for guinea pigs? It's a recycled card mix which is good for sensitive feet and lungs. Also the chunks are bigger and less likey to get stuck in orifices
It hasn' been mentioned here so I'm assuming not but always worth asking :)

I've mentioned finacard a few times. I used that before I moved to fleece.
 
Hi guys,
Thank you this feed is really helpful.
I have a quick question though... I use finacard for my African pigmy hedgehog. Is this any good for guinea pigs? It's a recycled card mix which is good for sensitive feet and lungs. Also the chunks are bigger and less likey to get stuck in orifices
It hasn' been mentioned here so I'm assuming not but always worth asking :)
Yes finacard is fine for guinea pigs.
 
Does anyone know what the most budget friendly mattress protector that can be used under fleece is currently?

I'm eyeing up some proper incontinence pads but i havnt tried by hooligans with fleece yet, and if they dont take to it i dont want to have spent too much really!
 
Does anyone know what the most budget friendly mattress protector that can be used under fleece is currently?

I'm eyeing up some proper incontinence pads but i havnt tried by hooligans with fleece yet, and if they dont take to it i dont want to have spent too much really!

Are you looking for washable or disposable? I have used both. I am using disposable incontinence pads that I change every other day at the moment.
 
Are you looking for washable or disposable? I have used both. I am using disposable incontinence pads that I change every other day at the moment.
Reusable preferably. I may have to just bite the bullet so to speak and reuse to change back to shavings, my boys have me round their little fingers though :p
 
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