Guinea Pig fleece or paper?

[Sookeh]

My Piggies have been using fleece for a while but I find it hard work. I can never get all of the hair off and it tends to get smelly quickly. I'm considering going back to Sawdust/paper bedding but it can get quite pricey as their cage is huge and I like to change it often.

Is there a sort of middle option between fleece and sawdust/bedding type stuff?

Hi Sookeh- the fleece is lovely for them to snuggle in but it is a blighter to get the hair (and the hay) off. I use a "Buddy Brush" from Lakeland Limited- it's got rubber bristles so it grips the hay and fur.

Have a look at VetBed online.The reviews are good, it is a pricey outlay but it seems to last and you can give them a piece to sleep on, keep it away from the hay.
Or try keeping your hay in a rack or one of those hanging ball 'cages'. It'll keep them entertained too. They need hay to eat, they like hay to snuggle in and burrow in, but as long as they've got unlimited hay to scoff, they're fine.

I use newspaper for mine + hay. (I use the free papers and the ones in supermarkets,and I go round picking up copies of the Metro when I'm on the Underground. Bonus points if the boars wee on a photo of Boris Johnson)

Instead of sawdust, have you tried Megazorb? Much more rodent friendly and helps with the smell (though I use furry friendly cat litter wooden pellets under their paper.When I take the paper out there might be a couple of patches of pellets that need scooped out, but it lasts ages)

And finely shredded plain paper lets them indulge their Hunter/Gatherer Indiana Jones Alter Egos - or so they tell me

I'm on the sawdust/newspaper. My boys are so messy that anything else would work out too expensive. My parents donate their broadsheets and I put a layer of sawdust over the top for the pigs to dig in and throw at me whenever I walk past. They have hay in their houses for eating/burrowing. I've tried various set-ups but this works best for them as they just pee and poo indiscriminately and need a lot of mucking out. Current bun has a toilet in the corner of his cage with rabbit litter in and then just newspaper in his cage - he is much cleaner!

GP2 (little bugger) woke me at 4am chewing the cardboard box I gave them.
They have food. A whole corn on the cob too.
Hay.On newspaper.
A towel in the box (a Marks and Spence box too not just a bog standard one).
They don't eat the newspaper but ,blinking flip, the cardboard massacre-ing is loud.

Little beast!

I use newspapers with vetbed fleece over half the cage bottom and just hay on the other half. The vetbeds do need a good brushing before going in the wash. I put them in a pillow case tied up for washing, then tumble dry so any remaining bits get caught in the filger.

That's "filter!"

I tried fleece for a while (about 6 weeks) but it was hard to get all the hay off the fleece . I was using a hayrack but it still got trampled everywhere.
I was convinced I would end up breaking the washing machine!
So now I use newspaper with hay on top. They have a corner toilet with some sawdust but they poo everywhere!
They seem to love having loads of hay now. They have a cosy cup in their bed area and I put some fleece / towel in their too as they love hiding under it.

Mine are inside btw - but the hutch will go outside in the spring. I didn't want to put the babies straight outside when we got them in October....

I used to use puppy pads and fleece but after reading through a thread on the guinea pig forum I now use easibed with a foam mat on top. The mat lets the wee straight through and it's ace, the hair and hay just brushes straight off. I got the matting from eBay I got 2 mats which fits the 4 x 2 C&C well, I needed to wash it first as it smelt really plasticy, but now it's fab. My girls wee pretty much only in the litter tray but if they do wee on elsewhere I can easily just scoop the little bit of easibed out. I started this at Xmas time and haven't had to change the easibed yet, just a couple of small patches here and there.

(I do use a folded up fleece blanket under their hideyhouse so it's comfy for them to sit on)

My 2 boys have a lovely fresh fleece in a new cardboard box in their cage tonight.
They have a pile of hay in the corner and their supper.
They are both sitting in the hay . I will put them in the fleece box and make them sleep on it

Ha ha ha 70!