Guinea pigs, fleece and copious poo

[PigPogtastic]

My two piggies have moved into a c&c cage and I have fleece bedding from Ziggies piggies. It is working ok, but oh my god the poo! I swept it out twice yesterday and this morning it is once more a scene of poomageddon. I added a corner litter tray, which they happily tipped over and threw the hay everywhere.

Is there a way to keep it cleaner for them? I don't like the idea of them being surrounded by poo so much. When they had a smaller cage I used newspaper, hay and back to nature pellets. I guess there was always the same amount of poo but it sank in to to the bedding more.

I added a hay loft and mine poop there more than anywhere. It’s covered with a blanket so I think they like to pee and poop in privacy!

There a little bit of poop on the main floor but just a few and they don’t wee much down there either (dry paper).

So maybe make a darker area/corner?

I have one end covered with a blanket to give shelter, but they still like to cover the whole place.

Mine have spent their first night indoors of the season, and less than 24 hours later, the cage looks like a bombsite !

I decided to give fleece another whirl amd bought some of the cheapie IKEA ones ( decent sized and quite coarse so good for wicking their pee)

GP6 has his own cage and is a tidy little boy , all his waste iin one corner.
The sows otoh, have scattered their pooh as far as they can, they just pooh'n'walk.
We've had 4 boars/4 sows over a period of time and sows are IME way messier

I think they take the clean home as a challenge to do lots of poo

I sometimes think I'm encouraging them to be manky by giving them clean beds . Our GP1 (our most boary boar) would save a good bladderful to pee at the edge of the bedding .
Every Single Time .

I've never been brave enough to test my theory and leave them a couple of days though !

I use a c and c grid folded then attatched to the cage as a hay dispser(?). I bought a cat litter tray which is underneath. This catches the hay from above keeping the cage tidier and they tend to poop/sleep (boak!) in it. I’m

I got fed up handwashing the fleeces and bought a couple of those 'PetBags' . Still need to give them a good shake (before and after) but the debris does stay in the bag.

I searched to find some very neutral detergent and found some SureCare which'll do the job nicely.

It doesn't stop them being messy little tykes but it keeps them comfy and cosy underpaw .

I've compromised (and hopefully have the right solution)
My pigs now have fleece in their floorspace and puppy pads/newspaper/deep hay in their bedroom area of the C&C.
I put high sided cardboard in the sleeping bit to (hopefully) contain it

My pigs argue that though I've kept pigs for years , I have no experience of being one so I have to bow to their superior judgement

They are happy with this.
I am less happy with the stray hay (hay cookies are less messy) but you cannot snuggle into a hay cookie.

I have just bought one of these and it does a cracking job of clearing up stray hay in ways that our old Dyson never could.

I could kiss you brizzle , I keep wrecking my dyson with hay😉

Bargain at £14. I thought it'd be useless but it's really good.

Can it pick up poop?

I expect so - I spilt the food nuggets earlier today and it picked those up. I've not tried it with poop as our pigs keep it neat in the cage (unlike their hay....)

Can it pick up poop?

Make sure its dry pooh though < not envy .....

How big is your c&c?

I have a 2x4. You can get a puppy pad on amazon exactly the right size for 2x4 so I just have those and change them every day- it's so easy.

Pig (single boar) has 2 squares of vet bed under 'houses' to sleep on. I have numerous vet bed squares and a 'horse bag' so I can run a hot wash of vet bed once a week.

I just put his hay and food straight down onto the puppy pad and give him fresh each day after the pad change.

All very slick and really cuts down his winter care.

I’m ordering one right now

Do they not eat puppy pads? I think ours would chew it.

Ours don't eat the puppy pads millimat they're under the newspaper layers (then either fleece or hay) the pigs do like to chew cardboard (noisily) .
And they play a game (especially GP7 and GP8 when she was with us) of diving under the fresh puppy pad as it was laid out , rummaging about like a little moving lump , repeat with the fleece , and the hay (though I take them out to put the hay in otherwise they get it all over theirs faces) . They emerge saying "Aren;t we cute" !

Even if we gave GP6 a puppy pad in his wooden garden house , he didn't eat it .

Not all guineas are as laid back though .

We used to use a horse bag and fleece but getting the hay off them never really worked so they never seemed clean, what's the secret we missed ?

I use some pet-bags brizzle -
they are brilliants but as you say they still have the hay clinging to them.

On mine it said put the detergent in the bag ( they aren't waterproof but they're pretty occlusive) then I shake them in the garden one they're washed and hang them out. The stray bits blow away.
The bag is full of random bits , I shake that outside.

I use an Ecover or Surecare clear scentless liquid , seems to work ok for them.

I use a horse rug bag for fleeces too. I put some dettol in with the detergent to eliminate smells.

We're cleaning them out today so we'll give the fleeces a try again as I have some dettol and will put the detergent in the bag. Thanks.

I wash ours every day though

I bought a load of Ikea flleeces (they were less than £2 each) and wick well.

I fit about 3 in each bag and wash one bag at a time . (or else my machine might protest)

Our pigs were surprisingly tidy on fleece but they had hay on paper to pee on too (once I realised how unreasonable I was being giving them fleece and hay cookies )
I hate to admit they were right , but rolling up the paper/hay and replacing it was really quick

Do you put the paper under or over the fleece?