Best non-sawdust, easy to clean and maintain beddings?

[hyeler]

So I’ll start this off by saying that we’ve had sawdust bedding for most of the time we’ve had our two guineas (by we I mean me and my 15 yo daughter who would be mainly in charge of their care.)

Recently Cody-one of the two pigs- had a bit of a respiratory problem, and the vet suggested we remove the sawdust and see how he is. We have been using newspaper under towels and changing it regularly for the past few days and Cody has had a massive improvement. Sawdust is officially off the cards for bedding from now on.

Towels however, are not very suitable for the guinea pigs or practical on a long term basis, especially as my daughter is about to head back to school and will have less time. Can anyone suggest appropriate beddings for guinea pigs that require minimal time/energy to change out?

 

[sunflowerpiggies]

you could try a paper bedding, you could use it the same way as you used the wood shavings but it may be more comfortable for Cody. I would recommend fitch www.fitchfirst.co.uk however it has been increasing in price and decreasing in quality recently, alternatively you could try the egg tray bedding on www.petbeddinguk.co.uk , I believe its better quality and value for money, I have never personally used it but I know that many people on the forum do. Obviously there is also carefresh and kaytee clean and cosy but I feel that they are quite expensive. You could also try a different plant based bedding such as hemp, megazorb, aubiose or possibly aspen (as although aspen is very similar to wood shavings as it is wood, it does not contain pine which I believe can sometimes be the cause of respiratory issues in small animals). I recommend you search for some of these beddings in the forum search box in the top right of the screen and read what other people say about them.
Good luck!

 

[hyeler]

Thanks for the quick response, will look into those, both me and my piggies thank you!

 

[piggieminder]

You may find this thread useful
Bedding Guide
I have a piggy with respitory problems, thought by the vet to be related to dust in bedding and hay, she advised vetbed or fleece for him. I use fleece liners in the main cage and vetbed in the sleeping areas where they wee the most.

 

[Lady Kelly]

I use aubiose as my piggies are outdoors so I didn't get on with fleece. It's a horse bedding and hemp based, the wees soak to the bottom so the top stays nice and dry. I think if you got on with sawdust as a bedding (other than respiratory problems) you would probably like this. You can only buy in 20kg bags though so would need somewhere to store it

 

[Betsy]

I use washable puppy pads and hay in my hutch. I find it works best for me. I tried aubiose and although very good and lovely and absorbant I didn't like it so went back to what I knew best: washable puppy pads and hay. I think it is a case of trying what you and your piggies like.

 

[Caris]

I started off with aubiose, but found it, personally, to be very dusty and it actually set my own allergies off, and I found it a lot of hard work to do a full cage clean each week, and it seemed to get everywhere, but I know a lot of people who use it and have had no problems. I use fleece liners now and actually find, for me, that they take up a lot less time to keep clean. Poo-picking is less than a five minute job each time, and when it comes to changing liners it takes two minutes to switch them over. I then leave the old liner for a day or two, and then sweep/hoover any hay off and stick it in the washing machine.

I think it's all about trying multiple things and seeing what works for you and your piggies.

 

[Siikibam]

I’ve tried woodshavings (good but went everywhere OUTSIDE THE CAGE when the piggies ran a marathon etc), biocatelet (worked well and I really liked it but not economically viable long term), aubiose (loved it but unfortunately it triggered allergy/asthma) and fleece. I did use fleece briefly a long time ago and switched as I didn’t get on with it. But I tried it again last year?...and now have stuck with it. I use bath mats on top (I change them) which means I can extend use of the fleece to about 7-10 days.

It was difficult the amount of rubbish I was getting every week due to the disposable bedding, and was under pressure to do the clean either Thursdays or Friday morning before bin collection.

I’m still using disposable bedding - puppy pads in their hay trays - which I change every 2-3 days. But it doesn’t pile up as much as a full clean with disposable bedding. I’m looking to change to maybe washable puppy pads/incontinence pads so I can really cut down on rubbish.

There’s also megazorb. I only encountered it once when I had the school guinea pigs to stay for the weekend. It seemed good but I can’t say for sure as I didn’t clean out their cage in those two days. But I couldn’t have used it myself as once again I had some kind of allergy to it (itchy nose). It definitely was t the girls because when I had them next time, I used woodshavings and was absolutely fine.