Finacard

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shawn

Hello everyone. I thought I should make a post about my recent experience going from fleece to finacard. We have been using fleece for our two pigs since we first got them and a few weeks ago we looked into other bedding due to the constant washing, brushing off of hay and smell of fleece.

We chose to try finacard and after a few weeks of using it I can safely say we would never go back to fleece, nor would I recommend fleece to anyone. We now have a layer of towels on the bottom of the cage and then an inch or two of finacard on top. Smells are basically non existant, our two stinkers would usually smell a few hours after changing their fleece. We completely clean out the cage twice a week and rarely ever notice any smell using finacard. Cleaning out the cage is easy too, we just roll up the towels and empty them into bags.

Our two boars love it also, which is handy. They are in a 2x4 c&c with a loft area. Usually our oldest pig Hugo would sit in the loft all day, it was like his little area where he was king. After we put finacard on the bottom of the cage and left the loft with fleece he hardly ever went in there. I think they are genuinely more comfly laying around on the cardboard.

You get a decent amount for the money too, it was £13.99 delivered and I reckon that will probably last us 2 months.

All in all we are very impressed and I would suggest giving it a try if you fancy a change.
 
Unless I'm missing something, it's just shredded cardboard isn't it?

Well I used to get that A LOT cheaper than that from here: http://www.abctogether.co.uk/

I'm pretty sure a bale was just over £5

We only cut it out due the volume of waste that builds up in the old wheelie bin.
 
Yes, it's just chopped up cardboard that is dust extracted. Nothing special but it works a treat. I don't suppose you know how much you get in kg for £5 from abc together? The finacard bale is 17kg.

Thanks for the info!
 
200 litre bags compressed to 120 litres - is what the website says, its also dust extracted.
But unless your local to the wirral, its not much of an alternative to you :-\
 
Doesn't it mush up when wet though? I'm using fleece, no expense so I'm happy with that. :)
 
I use premier bed for the rats & hams, it's really good for them; it does stick to the rats "loo" when its wet but haven't noticed mushy, tho' with the amount of urine some of my piggies pass i reckon it would mush :)
 
its vet bed for me all the way :smitten:

Pickle had awful problems with sores on her feet that never healed (she's one of those pigs who will happily sit in her own wee ::) ), but since we changed to vet bet, they have all but gone, and she is a lot happier. worth the expense and the minor annoyance of brushing off the hay? Well it is for me anyway.
 
The wee flows down to the bottom and the towels soak it up. There is usually some mush stuck to the towels but not as much as I was expecting. Maybe me and my gf are lazy but we find it far easier to just fill up a bag of shredded cardboard than deal with the fleece. One of our boars loves to play around in hay so we always put a pile in the cage with them rather than in a rack, this always got stuck all over the fleece. Also the washing machine in our house is owned by our landlord, which means we were always paranoid about blocking it up with hay etc or just breaking it due to over use.

The main thing that shocks me about people that use fleece and the like is they say it doesn't smell. We must have extra stinky boars because I could certainly smell them even after only a few hours of cleaning their cage out with fleece.

I suppose it all depends on your pigs and how much time you have spare and all that. Personally I think the price of finacard is worth it and it saves us time and effort.
 
I've never used fleece, so I couldn't comment on the smell.

You're right, I think that whatever is best for your pigs, is best for you. the vet bed is more work, but it make spot cleaning sooooo easy, just sweep away the poo. We have litter trays underneath our hay mangers, this keeps most of the hay they pull down off the vetbed. it also means they have clean dry hay in the manger, and hay they've prob wee'd on in the litter tray.

We started on woodshavings, (stopped this because of all the probs rodents have with allergies etc)
just newspaper, (gets wet and stays wet very quickly).
cardboard, we are still happy with, but found it was filling up the wheelie bin terrifyingly fast. we still use it for our hamster and the rats.
Just hay and newspaper (wasn't happy that pickle was potentially eating wee soaked hay)
paper wool, carefresh, rodent safe cat litter, we've tried them all.
but with all of these beddings pickle had horrible sores on her feet, but as i said since changing to vet be these have all but gone. She will be on vetbed (profleece) for the rest of her hopefully long life.
the washing could be viewed as a pain, but it doesn't bother the OH or myself one bit.
sorry for going off topic, and welcome to the forum :D
Jane
 
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