Cleaning Fleece!

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1stTimePiggieOwner

1stTimePiggieOwner

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This is actually starting to drive me round the twist!

How do you guys clean your fleece on a daily basis? Currently I am sweeping out the cage daily and then changing the blankets/towels/paper every 2-3 days depending on how manky it is. Then I give the whole cage a thorough scrub and disinfect it once a week.

But on a daily basis sweeping out the fleece is driving me potty, I can't do it! It isn't the poo thats the problem, it's the hay sticking to the fleece and making it impossible to sweep up and then theirs the fact that the poo mixes in with the hay and arghhh! I did try hoovering it with the pipe attachment of the hoover but it just sucks up the whole blanket!

I don't really want to have to take the blanket outside and shake it everyday as I find it quite tricky to get the blankets in just the right place in the cage so taking it out and having to put it back again daily just sounds like making more work.

Am I missing something, surely I'm making this hard work and theres an easy way to keep the fleece clean daily?

Thanks x
 
What I do, is get a flexible trug (you can buy them from any equestrian shops), and fill it a quarter full with cold tap water. Then I squirt a bit of basic washing up liquid into it, and mix it in with my hands until it is foamy. Then I boil the kettle and pour in the warm water until it is about half full. Then dunk in your fleece and get scrubbing. I wear a pair of rubber gloves to help me along.

When I have got rid of any stains, I then rinse my fleece. I ring out as much of the suds as I can, and then thoroughly rinse it until I am absolutely sure it has no suds in it.

Then I ring as much water out as I can, and once I am sure, hang it up on the wirly-gig (or washing line) and let it dry as long as it needs to :)

Please note I only do this once a week, do this most days if you like :)
 
How do you currently provide your pigs with hay? (i.e. in a hay rack, in a litter tray etc.)

I use a handheld hoover in my pigs cages daily, but there is very little hay to tidy up due to the way I give the pigs their hay. Hay tracking onto the fleece is a big frustration, you are not alone at all in that. :)
 
I use one of those little Broom's & shovels & when i have the vacuum out i do a quick Poo suck up.
 
To be honest I pick the poo up by hand. Yuck I know but I tried a dustpan and brush and but they get into all sorts of awkward places, and I do wear latex gloves. As for the hay, well I just sweep up what I can and try not to notice the rest.
 
pagan queen said:
To be honest I pick the poo up by hand. Yuck I know but I tried a dustpan and brush and but they get into all sorts of awkward places, and I do wear latex gloves. As for the hay, well I just sweep up what I can and try not to notice the rest.
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I pick the poo up by hand, too, but I don't wear latex gloves - just wash my hands vigorously with soap and hot water afterwards!

I use a trowel (the pointy bit helps with corners) and a child's spade --- with these, I scrape the hay/grass off the fleece and it works wonders for me and my piggy (who seems to like a very clean cage -twice a day!).

As for the fleece & towels - I wash every 2-3 days or so. Because my gp uses a corner loo very faithfully for poo & wee, there is only very little wee anywhere else - isn't he an angel?
 
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The majority of my cage is fleece but i have a 1 by 2 c&c hay and paper section and the girls generally always wee and poop there and there are only a few bits of poop where they sleep, by keeping the hay in one little area means it does not get tracked everywhere. I quite like the idea of a dustbuster to pick up the stray poops.
 
Thank you for the replies.

Sounds like there is no particularly magical miracle answer though. I currently feed hay in a hanger but they also have hay in their igloo's for extra bedding, should I change this do you think?

I'm wondering if on the next pay day I invest in one of those hand-held hoovers as that seems the easiest solution. When I switched to fleece my plan was to give it a quick vacuum over every day with the main hoover, using the attachment but the suck is just to strong and it sucks up the whole fleece not just the hay and poo! Maybe if I get a hand-held one then the "suck" won't be as strong?

Hmm...sorry thinking aloud now! lol x

Thanks again
 
Hi what sort of fleece do you use?. I found it really hard with the proper thick fleece but then changed to an old baby fleecy blanket as the bits dont get stuck init so much, same with the towels they fall off these easily.
I have a hay rack at one end and make it more towel and less fleece at this end.
I use a dust pan and brush for poos from the corner and wash blankets every other day.x
 
i wash my fleece and piggy beds everyday. throughout the day i go on poo patrol lol, just pick it up by hand, so when i come to wash them, there isn't to much. My washing machine must be very forgiving, as all my fleece's and beds go in there!
 
I use a small hand held hoover (quite cheap from Argos) to pick up small pieces of hay and poos after they have been in their evening run - soooo much easier than brushing the fleece every night! In their cage I use a small poop scoop (79p pets at home!) to scape to poos into one area then I can take them out. Small pices of hay in their cage don't bother me really, but then i'm naturally untidy! The poop scoop is quite good at getting hay/poops off the fleece and the dustbuster would do the job better probably - enough suck to pick up small pieces without sucking up the whoe fleece!
Good luck!
x
 
Thanks again for all the resposnses.

I am definately thinking that a hand held hoover is the way forward, will have to wait till pay day though.

Thanks x
 
I don't find my handheld hoover is much use! it was a dustbuster make one and was about £25 but is rubbish only got it for the piggies in december but never bother with it now.

If you want them to have hay in their beds then invest in some small cat litter trays and put their houses in the tray with plenty of hay. Also use either a corner litter tray designed for small pets for under your hay rack or again you could use a cat litter tray. the good thing about the corner ones is that they are pretty high and come with holes in so you can tie with string to the cage to stop the mischiefs moving them from under the hay rack!
 
Briony_Y said:
I don't find my handheld hoover is much use! it was a dustbuster make one and was about £25 but is rubbish only got it for the piggies in december but never bother with it now.
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Ditto! I did the same thing (tho bought for a dog) and it doesn't really suck the hay/dirt all that much. So, I just scrape everything off with the trowel and spade - much much better!

Hope we're not confusing you !
 
I use a kids plastic shovel for daily poop removal. It glides around the fleece nicely and only takes a couple of minutes.
 
ok so now slightly confused! :{ LOL

I'm going to show my partner this thread at the weekend and let him see the different options, see what he thinks will work for us.

Thanks all
 
Rubybubbles said:
what did you do in the end?
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Well we brought the little hand held hoover, which is ok but we've also found a way of securing the fleece under the top of the cage so it is more tight and doesn't move so much when I brush it with the sweeping brush, so we now use a combination of sweeping and mini vacuuming and I don't seem so stressed out with it! lol Although the hay still goes everywhere, my boys are soooooooooo messy! x
 
I have a handheld vacuum but it only helps for the poop, really. The hay everywhere is driving me insane. I want it to look tidy...but God forbid..
 
for spot cleans i use a dustpan and brush to get all of the hay and big mess out of the cage then i get my dustbuster(mini handheld vacuum) and suck up the poo and old pellets that they scatter,it works great but i had to pay 100 pounds to get one quiet enough so it doesnt upset the pigs xx
 
Hay and fleece aren't friends in my world so I keep them apart. The hay is in a separate plastic tub with a paper based kitty litter underneath leaving my fleece clean but for a million little guinea pig poos that I clean up by hand whenever I hang out by their cage. It works for me.

I have three layers of cotton towels underneath the fleece blanket. I change the blanket every 2-4 days, the towels last a little longer, mainly because my piggies wee everywhere so that it's evenly distributed all over the place ;). I have not noticed any smell yet.
 
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