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Small pets

Burgess Excel Bedding and Litter - anyone tried?

6 replies

70isaLimitNotaTarget · 14/05/2014 14:16

I buy the Burgess Excel guinea-pig pellets (orange bag) and I saw the bedding today.
I buy small furry friendly cat litter for the pigs cage but this is made of 100% heat treated, dust extracted pressed straw (into small pellet like pieces) 10 times more absorbant than shavings or straw.

I'm going to try it out this week, (my fur babies pee rivers ) to see if it controls boary odours and keeps their house nicer.
Especially in the run up to the warmer weather. I have found keeping piggies cool is much trickier than keeping pigs snuggly

GP1 has a wicker house that's on a bed of hay. GP3 prefers to haybox.
I'll try one week of under the newspaper, one week on top of paper and see what works best.
Might not work at all. They might say "I'm not sleeping on that " like they were very judgey with the food cubes.

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FernieB · 14/05/2014 15:59

Not tried it but will be interested to hear your results. My boys (including the long eared one) were also not impressed by the food cubes although Scruffy did like to clamber on top and then pee. Turned it into a lovely mulch.

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Gingerbics · 14/05/2014 19:41

Hi 70 I'll be interested to hear the results of your pigbed experiment. Currently using the ' back2nature small animal recycled paper bedding from PAH on top of newspaper. Not baaaaad but those boar wees do stink!

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Piggiefan · 15/05/2014 21:33

Another one watching your thread for a report next week. I'm using Megazorb, which I really like but as we're only on week 3 of piggie ownership I haven't got much to compare it to. I don't particularly like my hay section of their bedding area as they just trample it down and by the end of the week it's getting on for 4" deep.

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70isaLimitNotaTarget · 17/05/2014 22:18

I put some in the trug on top of newspaper with some hay. Smaller trug upside down to make a nice hideyspace (they both have doors cut , I don't keep my guineas in trugs )

Checked today for pooh nests - nothing in the trug.
I'll give it a couple of days to let them try it.

Piggie hay does get flattened (and peed/poohed on) I give fresh every 2 days at the moment, every day in summer- but they have less hay in really hot weather, just to eat, not bedding (they get far too warm). Shredded paper lets them scrabble about but not so insulating.

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JokersGiggle · 05/06/2014 12:15

I use it over newspaper and its amazing.....but I have girls at the moment! Much less smelly than boys

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70isaLimitNotaTarget · 17/08/2014 18:42

Continuing the search for the perfect bedding (oh that sounds a bit Heston Blumenthal doesn't it )

DD and I went to a huge saddlery (I used to go horse-riding as a teen-late 20s, tried to get DD horse-riding but she didn't gel with it)

I bought (after much online searching) some cardboard bedding (Eco-Bale) it was £7 ish for 20 kg bale . I didn't realise how big a 20kg bale was till I bought 3 and tried to get them in my car........

So - it's in there bed for a test run. My sows are very piddly critters.
Advantages: it seems quite soft. It's in small bits so nice for them to rummage in. It's got no dust. No smell. Not straw or sawdust or woodshaving.

Disadvantages: it's £7 for a bag of chopped up cardboard (I was feeling the mean tightfisted side of me creeping in)
I bought 3 bales to make it worth my while driving there.

I'll see how they go. (It was recommended on a Rat website and Poultry website) If they don't like it, they'll have to hover above it