HopsPopsAl
New Born Pup
Hi all
I’m on a quest to make the easiest peegie cage clean process. I wanted to share what I have done so far and get all your tips and tricks to understand how I can better it. My main goal was to make the daily clean of the kitchen (and toilet) as quick and painless as possible. Obviously costs are important and I want this to be environmentally friendly as well, but ease is priority number 1. This is for an indoor C&C cage with fleece base. This is not about the weekly full clean, just the daily "stop it becoming smelly" one. I'm planning on rebuilding the kitchen/toilet this weekend to incorporate some improvements and replace all the walls the peegies have chewed away. This is the journey I've had so far.
I've included some pics. Ignore the state of the kitchen as they have chewed it to bits and going to replace this next week.
So, where have I gone wrong or any tips you have to make the process quicker/cheaper/environmentally-friendly.
Thanks
Alan
I’m on a quest to make the easiest peegie cage clean process. I wanted to share what I have done so far and get all your tips and tricks to understand how I can better it. My main goal was to make the daily clean of the kitchen (and toilet) as quick and painless as possible. Obviously costs are important and I want this to be environmentally friendly as well, but ease is priority number 1. This is for an indoor C&C cage with fleece base. This is not about the weekly full clean, just the daily "stop it becoming smelly" one. I'm planning on rebuilding the kitchen/toilet this weekend to incorporate some improvements and replace all the walls the peegies have chewed away. This is the journey I've had so far.
- I initially used a cat litter tray but the curved edges resulted in the pigs pushing the bedding away and ended up with smooshed poo/pee mix. I switched to making a custom plastic coroplast kitchen that can slot in/out from one of the C&C doors. It also had higher walls to reduce mess into the rest of the cage and provide a more concealed space so that they will (hopefully) use that area more for their pees.
- I divided the kitchen up between a bedding/hay area and one for veggies/water that could sit on a pee pad. This was to keep the bedding amount needed to a minimum (save cost/waste). I have since decided that this won’t work since they are now quite big and there isn’t space for the both of them to be in the hay/bedding, especially with the new hay rack (in a point below). So for the new rebuild (kitchen v2.0) I'll probably make the whole thing bedding and hay. I am annoyed that I will have a lot more waste with bedding though so still trying to think of improvements.
- For the daily clean, I would pick up the poos, replace pee pads and take kitchen/toilet out to replace bedding and hay. I used to try sort out the wet bedding from the dry but that was a total pain. So now I just dump the lot. However, I saw that a lot of the bedding would stick to the bottom due to the pee, which resulted in me trying to scrape it all off and consuming time. I tried with a sheet of newspaper at the bottom which helped with the bedding sticking but resulted in a wettish bottom of the kitchen which I would need to dry to try avoid excess pee smelling things up. Now I’m putting some bedding down, then a sheet of newspaper and then more bedding on top. Makes clear up easy but results in more time and bedding being used in setting up, so I'm undecided on whether to continue with this. There must be a better way?
- For the hay, I initially just dumped the hay loose on the bedding but realised that there was a lot of waste at the end of the day as I always gave them lots and then needed to throw all the excess away due to it being soiled. So I then installed a hay rack that hangs off the top C&C cage on the side. They still get some on the bedding but there is always enough in the rack so they have clean hay and I reduce the waste throwing away at the end of the day.
I've included some pics. Ignore the state of the kitchen as they have chewed it to bits and going to replace this next week.
So, where have I gone wrong or any tips you have to make the process quicker/cheaper/environmentally-friendly.
Thanks
Alan
). I see they do ones that are biodegradable but are quite expensive to throw out every day. I will look further and see if I can find cheaper.
