Autonerd
Junior Guinea Pig
Hi all! Haven't posted in a while because things are going (relatively) well with our boys. Sadly we lost Mario a few months back, but happily we welcomed Harrison, Oreo's 3rd cagemate (is he murdering them?). Harry's skittish w/ people but otherwise very happy, and Oreo seems happier as well.
Anyway.
Looking for advice on how to... how shall I say this... make it less obvious when you open our door that we own guinea pigs. We live in an apartment in a hot part of Los Angeles, and in summer we must keep windows closed and A/C on, plus we have dogs, so it gets rather, uh, fragrant in here. We use fans at night but cross-ventilation is not very good so its' hard to air the place out.
Our boys live in a C&C with a Coroplast tray. We clean the cage every 2-3 weeks, using large bed/pet underpads with two plastic poop trays (one in the hide, one outside), covering everything with a generous layer of wood shavings. (I used to use lavender-scented paper.) We hose down the dirty mats and usually, but not always, machine wash them. I generally do not clean the coroplast tray.
We free-feed our hay, which we buy by the bale, not bagged, piling it in and letting the pigs spread it around. We don't always remove used hay, since the boys love to burrow in it, but clean the cage when it piles too high.
We have a Homedics HEPA air purifier, vacuum the filter regularly but don't change it often. Seems to me this gizmo used to work a lot better than it does now but maybe that's my imagination.
I noticed in today's cleaning that the two plastic trays we use for poop, now about three years old, have a crust of poop that won't go away, even with steel wool.
No one in the house smokes, we don't use perfume or cologne, nor any sort of air freshener gizmo or spray (we're open to air fresheners, not smoking or cologne).
We don't do butt-cleaning ourselves but take them to LAGPR every 3 mos or so for a check up (we're actually overdue).
SO -- I would be grateful for any advice you can give! I have some specific questions below, but would appreciate any guidance.
1) Could the plastic trays and their poop-crust be part of the problem? Should I replace them with metal? (Would prefer not to regularly put more plastic in a landfill.)
2) Is there a better solution than the Homedics air purifier?
3) Should I go back to lavender paper shavings?
4) Should I replace the coroplast liner? (Man, I hope not, what a pain in the butt it was to make that thing!)
I thank you, my wife thanks you, and Oreo and Harrison thank you!
Anyway.
Looking for advice on how to... how shall I say this... make it less obvious when you open our door that we own guinea pigs. We live in an apartment in a hot part of Los Angeles, and in summer we must keep windows closed and A/C on, plus we have dogs, so it gets rather, uh, fragrant in here. We use fans at night but cross-ventilation is not very good so its' hard to air the place out.
Our boys live in a C&C with a Coroplast tray. We clean the cage every 2-3 weeks, using large bed/pet underpads with two plastic poop trays (one in the hide, one outside), covering everything with a generous layer of wood shavings. (I used to use lavender-scented paper.) We hose down the dirty mats and usually, but not always, machine wash them. I generally do not clean the coroplast tray.
We free-feed our hay, which we buy by the bale, not bagged, piling it in and letting the pigs spread it around. We don't always remove used hay, since the boys love to burrow in it, but clean the cage when it piles too high.
We have a Homedics HEPA air purifier, vacuum the filter regularly but don't change it often. Seems to me this gizmo used to work a lot better than it does now but maybe that's my imagination.
I noticed in today's cleaning that the two plastic trays we use for poop, now about three years old, have a crust of poop that won't go away, even with steel wool.
No one in the house smokes, we don't use perfume or cologne, nor any sort of air freshener gizmo or spray (we're open to air fresheners, not smoking or cologne).
We don't do butt-cleaning ourselves but take them to LAGPR every 3 mos or so for a check up (we're actually overdue).
SO -- I would be grateful for any advice you can give! I have some specific questions below, but would appreciate any guidance.
1) Could the plastic trays and their poop-crust be part of the problem? Should I replace them with metal? (Would prefer not to regularly put more plastic in a landfill.)
2) Is there a better solution than the Homedics air purifier?
3) Should I go back to lavender paper shavings?
4) Should I replace the coroplast liner? (Man, I hope not, what a pain in the butt it was to make that thing!)
I thank you, my wife thanks you, and Oreo and Harrison thank you!
