What bedding do you guys use?

KatieH

KatieH

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So recently I’ve been on able to purge my cage of the terrible smell that envelops both it and my room. I’ve tried everything from paper to wood shavings, and right now they are on a Guinea Dad liner. I follow the washing instructions as closely as possible, kept everything is cold as possible, but my liner is still shrinking, and it’s already about a centimeter or two too short for their cage, and I’m scared that when I’m due to wash it again, it will become unusable. I’m getting really frustrated, because I’m really tired of my room smelling so terrible, but I don’t know if there’s anything else that I haven’t tried.

what do you guys use/recommend?
 
Can you tell us a bit more about your piggies and your set up

their sexes
ages
how big their cage is
how often you clean
how often you poop pick

You shouldn’t be getting that much of an offensive smell from them….
 
They are both boars
A year old this July
They are in the Midwest, which I know is too small, but I can’t afford to upgrade them right now
I wash the liner once a week, and I spot clean every other day
 
I just started using wood pellets under fleece. I read that they help a lot with smells and are easy to use, so I wanted to give them a shot. They are working well so far! The wood pellets never smell, only the fleece toward the end of the week. It's really cost effective and easy. You need to make sure the wood pellets don't have any chemicals in them and that they aren't sharp. I was skeptical reading about it at first, but it seems to be working really well. So far I'm on the almost the third week and I haven't had to replace any pellets yet, but I do change the fleece every 6-7 days. I also sift out any used pellets once a week and pat them down to make sure they are comfy on the piggies feet. The fleece also makes it nice and soft. The only con so far is that my piggies pee in the same spot all the time, so the pellets in that one spot get used up way faster than 98% of the other pellets, which is a bit annoying.

Aside from all of this though, your cage should not be stinking THAT bad no matter what bedding you are using, so I wonder if it's a different issue.
 
Fleece cage liners generally need changing twice a week and hot washing at 60 degrees C to get rid of lingering odours, although the Guineadad ones look nice you may be better with an unbranded one that will withstand a proper wash!
Generally a twice weekly full cage clean and a daily poop scoop/pee pad change in high traffic areas like under their houses should keep smells to a minimum.
 
As you know the cage is too small for a boar pair, and unfortunately that can also add to the smell. Teen boars scent mark - its going to happen, but in a small space the smell can be worse.
You would really need to be changing the fleece out more than once a week. Twice a week is recommended.
I dont have personal experience of guineadad liners but to me they seem expensive! I dont use fleece often (I use disposable beddings) as mine are in a shed but in summer when I do use fleece, I tend to just throw a fleece blanket over puppy pads. This works very well for me.
 
I poop scoop twice a day, wash liners twice a week maybe and have small fleece pee pads which last even less time.
I wash everything in 60 degrees unperfumed and some liners shrink and so be it.
I remove any food that hasn't been eaten. If there's smell it would only be because I'm late cleaning out. You could make a cheap c and c pen with grids on a shower curtain perhaps to give them more space very cheaply.
 
We have a Guinea Dad liner for one of our cages too and, even though I really like it, it definitely has its downsides. However, it shouldn’t shrink in size that substantially if you keep to the washing instructions - ours still fits fine after a year. I would definitely contact customer services about that!

However, if you don‘t want to cage the liner at least twice a week I would add extra protection in high traffic areas. We have hay trays with megazorb bedding which catch most of the pee, little bits of fleece fabric or small noodle mats in hideys and bath mats that get changed twice a week in high traffic areas. I do a full cage clean once a week and spot clean once every day. Other than the typical teenage boar smell which can be a bit pungent some days you can‘t really smell ours much :)
 
How often do you change out any wet hay? Another option could be to use bath mats on top of the liner. You can then change those every 2-3 days depending on how soiled they are.
 
I would go for the kind of liners you get from Etsy, that’s what we use (I make them), we have guineadad pee pads and I think they are shocking for shrinking, but I don’t have any issues with my normal fleece ones! We have two boars and change them every 5 days, using pee pads in heavy areas also helps. The most smelly place for our boys is the hay!
 
No smell here. 2 sows in a 5 x2 c&c 2 storey (it's only 2 x3 upstairs in the hayloft section)

Fleece over puppy pads both levels. Top level is either turned over or changed every day.

Bottom level once a week,

Fleece washed at 60°
 
I also have two teen boars on fleece liners - not guineadad but from recommended sites on the forum. I change the liner once a week, but change out pee pads in high traffic areas every other day or so. I also have two hay trays with paper bedding and find the most smell comes from me not changing the hay out regularly enough!

So now I change the hay trays every day and have no smell at all. But also I’ve learned from this forum never to change the whole cage out at the same time as that makes boars scent mark more, so when I do the weekly liner change I always leave soiled pee pads in there so it still smells like them

I hope you can find a solution!
 
We use disposable bedding in their kitchen (potty) areas. We spot clean (remove wet spots and freshen up bedding) once per day, more often if needed. Completely change disposable bedding once per week.
We use fleece liners (GuineaDad and fleece flippers from guineapigmarket.com and guineapigcagesstore.com) in the main area of their cage. I wash the fleece with guinea pig safe lanudry detergent and a spash of distilled white vinegar.
 
This is my set up.

20210615_125045.webp

The top floor cage liners of the hutch and all the pee pads inside the cosy beds are replaced every 2 days (or depending if they are soaking, then the next day). Underneath all the fleece cage liners are puppy pads to get all the excess wee through. My other cage liners (the bigger ones) all have middle absorbent layers so I only have to do a weekly change. Also, I poop clean their cage 3x a day (in the morning, at tea time, and around 11:30pm). I'm just fussy and don't want my piggies sleeping in loads of poops, especially at night (they prefer to sleep on the top floor of the hutch so all the build up of wee and poop are mostly located there, hence the bedding get change often in that area).
 
Hey, I just carpets in their cage and under them I put pee pads which really helps ! about the carpet they have a bunch of fleece in different parts of the cage to sleep on but the carpet is their main bedding. So far it has worked out nicely, maybe the pee pad solution under the fleece would help
 
mochalily2020 said:
Hey, I just carpets in their cage and under them I put pee pads which really helps ! about the carpet they have a bunch of fleece in different parts of the cage to sleep on but the carpet is their main bedding. So far it has worked out nicely, maybe the pee pad solution under the fleece would help
Click to expand...
Also I agree with about comments about spot cleaning daily because it helps not to have an accumulation of poops smell wise
 
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