fleece as bedding

[kidspiggies4]

Hi my piggies live indoors and at the moment I use dust extracted wood chips as bedding but I am finding it very messy as it gets kicked out of the cage etc. With 4 kids to look after too i am looking for a less messy option!. I have seen posts on here before about fleece bedding and may sound stupid but just wondering if I was to go for this, is there a specific type of fleece I need to use and anything I need to do/not do. Or any other bedding options I could consider? Any advice will be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[piggyfan]

Fleece can be bought from primark,home bargains,IKEA and supermarkets. Before you can use it you will have to was and dry it three times using a soap powder without fabric conditioner. You will need a layer of towels and two layers of fleece in the cage. You will have to poop pick two or three times a day and wash it all every three days.

I use vet bed which has to be washed in the same way. I find it more cosy for them.

 

[Stewybus]

We've used both fleece & vetbed which were both OK apart from the toll they put on the washing machine.

We then used a layer of hay on top of megazorb for about 10 months which required a 3/4 clean out every 7 days. By 3/4 I mean we salvaged about 1/4 of the megazord to use the following week. See http://www.northerncropdriers.co.uk/product/megazorb

We are now using White Paper Bedding (it looks to be tea-bag paper offcuts) we get from http://www.lawsonanimalfeeds.co.uk/rabbit-bedding/240-white-paper-bedding.html I think it is similar to Fitch, see http://www.fitchrecycling.co.uk/animal-bedding/fitch-pet-bedding.html With this we do a complete change every 8 days with a partial change every 4 days in between. I got this idea from my local rescue & it seems at present to be the best bedding we've tried over 27 months of keeping piggies. All types of bedding have positives & negatives, it's best to try different types before sticking with the one that suits you. They're all good in there own way.

 

[twiams]

I use fleece for two of my boys as one of them is very sensitive to dust but i’ve made my own liners as it’s easier to just bung in the washing machine that way, so in my cage it’s a layer of fleece, a mattress protector and then another layer of fleece, i wash it about every 4 or 5 days, i aim for 3 but I'm not perfect and it never happens every 3 days! But i try to sweep every other day.

As said before you need to wash any new fleece 3 times to get away the layer that you seem to get on new fleece that stops water getting through. But there is no particular type you need any fleece blanket will do

My other pig lives on Fitch bedding and i change that every week and i really like that too as i can leave it long without changing plus its soft and cosy still.

 

[kidspiggies4]

Thanks all for your help x