Tips for dealing with piggy laundry

[Sef]

I have been using fleece and towels for 3 years, now. Actually, I used it years ago when we first started out with guinea pigs; then switched to Carefresh; then back to towels and fleece when we moved to our new home.

A few things I've never been about to quite work out to my satisfaction:

• How and where to store dirty piggy laundry so it doesn't stink up the house;
• How and where to effectively shake/brush/clean off hay and poops from dirty piggy laundry before throwing it in the washer;
• How to clean out the washer after doing piggy laundry

Please share any tips you might have!

[janlovingcavies]

Sorry not much help. When changing laundry usually wash straight away and bung into the drier. As to hay we give a good shake and to clean washing machine we do a load with nothing in it. Hope you get the help you want.

[renonvsparky]

I use fleece bedding with wooden horse bedding pellets underneath. My system works very well for me. I don't worry about daily brushing or vacuuming hay, poop or whatever. I have over 50 blankets for starters. That allows me to put in fresh fleece every other day so that there's never more than 2 days worth of messes in the cages. Each time I change the fleece, I scoop out any wet stuff from underneath and replace it with dry. It doesn't usually take more that a couple of hands full of fresh bedding pellets so the bag I spend $10 US usually lasts about 2-3 months.

I have a hamper with a lid that I store dirty fleece in. I keep that in the garage and when it gets full, I make sure to shake the blankets thoroughly. I do it outside. (the pee in them is totally dry by then so it doesn't get all over the place). I take them to the laundromat and wash them in the biggest washer they have. I use a very small amount of laundry sanitizer and add an extra wash and spin cycle. With 5 cages, I have to do this twice a month.

The initial investment in fleece blankets was sizeable, but maintaining it doesn't take a lot of money. I spend about $20 a month on average; more if I have to replace worn out blankets. Being fleece they last for a very long time. With horse bedding pellets instead of towels, I don't have double the laundry. The pellets are also better at drawing the wetness away from the fleece and keeping it off of the pigs. Hope this helps.

[Sef]

I know a few people on GL use either wood stove pellets or horse stall pellets for the bottom layer under fleece, but I could never get a good feel for how that works. Do the pellets made the fleece bedding lumpy and hard? Is there a concern with any of your guys pulling up the fleece and trying to eat the wood pellets? When the pellets get wet, do they pretty much turn to sawdust or do they maintain a pellet shape?

I think they would probably not work too well for me, as I think the bags are pretty large and heavy, aren't they? Or am I thinking of something else?

Do you have any pictures of what this looks like once you get it in the cage?

[renonvsparky]

I have good luck with the pellets. I'll try and answer all of your questions.

1. They don't make the bottom lumpy or hard. They break up once they get wet and they're very absorbent. They can take a lot of moisture before they get saturated enough to need replacement. When I pull out the wet stuff, there literally only a couple of small scoops of it to replace; that is unless there's a leaky water bottle. The pellets also expand when wet which is why it doesn't take very many. A single layer to start with is sufficient.

2. The bag is not very big or heavy. It about like a 25 lb bag of dog food.

3. I use boards covered in fleece with plastic underneath to hold down the fleece so that the guinea pigs don't get under it. The fleece is stapled to the boards and I always make sure that the stapled side is always facing away from the babies.

You can see from this picture how the fleece covered retaining boards are cut to length so that they wedge in tight enough so the pigs can not move them or get under to chew the bedding pellets. I have a wisk broom I use to brush them off when I change the blankets. I also replace the fleece on the boards as needed. That about every 3-4 months for me because my boys pretty much leave them alone. They don't chew them or do much of their business on them.

My system works very well for me and the pigs.

[renonvsparky]

I took a couple more photos that show how I have my fleece bedding set up, but I would rather email them to you than use imgur links, if you are interested. I am just not in the mood to deal with the awful people there.

[Sef]

Sounds good. If you want me to help you set up a Blogger (blogspot.com) account to host your photos, let me know. I have been using it as a makeshift image host for many years without any issues.

Really like those retainer boards! All 5 of our boys are fleece-diggers.

[janlovingcavies]

I would also be interested in seeing pictures if possible. Sounds very interesting. As for imgur I use Flickr and I keep my pictures private. My girls like to bury themselves under bedding too.

[renonvsparky]

I'll email them to you if you dm me a good email address. I'm about done with social media.

[waddles]

I use a combination of wood pellets and fleece pads.

A 40 lb bag of wood pellets at Menards is $5 (Menards is the only place that sells them year round where I am) and I use the whole bag for my 4x2 C&C. On top of the pellets, instead of just fleece, I have fleece pads (one layer u haul in between the fleece).
I change out the pads every 3 -4 days depending on the pigs and how "neat" they are in terms of doing their business.

I had a pair of male fosters who only went in the kitchen area - it made life so easy! None of the others I've had have been so neat. I understand you can train them somewhat..lots of videos on Youtube if you want to give it a try. I haven't yet.

I find fleece pads and wood pellets much easier than fleece and towels which I did for a while.

The pads are thicker so it's not lumpy over the pellets. It's harder to burrow under fleece pads than just fleece so I've not had that problem. And since my fleece pads have an absorbent UHaul layer, the wood pellets are an extra layer of protection. They last a long time.

[waddles]

I've been seeing good reviews for this roller to remove the hair from the fleece before washing and thinking of getting one.


chomchomroller.com/

[Sef]

Well, that looks like an interesting product, waddles. It also has very positive reviews on Amazon.com. I wonder if it would get clogged up with hay? If you end up buying one, can you do a review of it on Piganon?

I use a rubber brush for cage tidying and knocking off hair and hay for the laundry:

[Sef]

Here are the additional photos from Renonvsparky. I'll let him add comments: