Preferred Bedding.

There are several bedding types that you can use for your cavy's cage. Timothy hay can be an option for bedding it is very cheap and healthy for cavies. Recycle paper products can be another option for bedding, aspen shavings. When purchasing shavings I will recommend you to buy them directly from a pet store, other than that may contain mites. Some people use bath towels which are the healthiest method in my opinion they do not contain dust, chemicals and other compounds, but they require daily change and a lot laundering. I will recommend the bath towels as I heard that they can help with avoiding any upper respiratory problems, because they do not contain any dust. If you need more details please feel free to ask me or the mods.

I have to disagree with some of the info you have posted. Timothy hay makes terrible bedding. My pigs make an awful mess with just the timothy hay they pull down from the hay rack. They lie in it, as well as pee and poop. The hay becomes a wretched stinky mess and the piggies get stinky too. Hay also gets moldy quite easily and mold is toxic.

If you use towels and fleece they do not need to be changed every day if you have a big enough cage. Every 3 days or so, depending on the number of pigs you have per cage.


Megan

There are several people that use hay, for the piggies just to play around it as hidey houses and just for them to have fun, you are responsible to change it, for fresh hay. I do agree that depending on the cage dimensions the laundering changes, you can also use hand vacuum to keep it clean, but I recommend to clean it every 2-3 days. It all depends on how clean you want the cage to be.

I tried hay as a bedding.

It is smelly.

Really smelly.

It must hurt the poor piggy noses.

It also can hurt their eyes, as they are pointy. I recommend putting some to provide them some hidey house sometimes, so they can play a little with it. I've never tried hay as a bedding, I've tried carefresh and pine shavings I also noticed on walmart the cheap fleece so I'll give it a try.

I bought my fleece at Wal-Mart. I bought it by the yard. Your pigs will love it. So soft and cuddly. Make sure you use a thick layer of newspaper, followed by a layer of two towels, then the fleece. And don't use any fabric softener on the fleece or it will not wick the pee through to the towels.

I wash mine in bleach and laundry detergent on the highest temperature setting. Then do an extra rinse with vinegar.

This works really in keeping the smell out.

Your piggies are going to LOVE you

Thank you!!!