Fleece + Wood Bits

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sheena lee

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 17, 2011
Messages
319
Location
Montreal, QC
I have a couple fleece liners for the CN cage. I wash them about once a week, give or take a couple days depending on how busy or not busy I am. I vacuum poop every other day normally.

The problem I have, Chia SHREDS wood, leaving behind all these little slivers and pieces that then get stuck to the fleece. I can vacuum as much as I want, but I can never really get them all out. I shake the liners out over my floor (and then vacuum) before throwing them in wash but there's usually still a significant amount left...

We have a brand new front loading washer/dryer set, and that usually gets the bits out, but I'm a bit worried about how that's affecting the washing machine. It can't be good, can it? Any one have any experience with this?
 
Also, has anyone had any experience with using wood as a floor pan? Chia has started chewing certain parts of her plastic pans, and I've since limited her to one floor of the CN (the top one she never chews)... but I'm thinking I might replace the plastic with fitted pine planks. I can see this getting disgusting though, cause she'll end up peeing on it. Metal pans are soo pricey and not friendly for shipping to Canada...
 
My chin does this too, luckily I don't have her on fleece but it gets all in her fleece hammock and it's definitely difficult to get out. Sometimes running a cat comb through it helps, but usually I just end up picking it all out. You might want to consider taking her off of the fleece liners if it's just going to end up ruining your washing machine! Not worth it in my opinion.

And I agree I think having pine as the floor would get disgusting....if I were you I'd consider lining the floor with tile instead, and then that would solve your fleece issue as well. You can either get fancy and cut tiles to size so that they fit perfectly in there, or just have most of the wire floor covered in tile and you can remove them to clean them off when they get dirty. If you go to a home depot or lowes you can buy individual tile pieces for about $3-6 each, depending on the type/color. It'll look nice and it's easy to clean.
 
Ah tiles is a fantastic idea!!

Do you usually let the chins pee on it, and then just wipe it down daily? I can totally handle doing that as opposed to washing the fleece! (heheh I'm an extremely busy person, always looking for faster ways to do things!)

I planned to go to Rona this evening so I'll probably get tiles along with the wood I was planning to get to re-shelve the bottom half of the cage so I can give her access again.
 
I found a place in Canada that makes metal pans: http://www.sunnymeadowscages.com/

Not a bad price!!

I did realise though that it doesn't actually solve my wood bits on the fleece problem... I'm hoping I'll be able to tile the cage for fairly cheap, even if I have to do one half at a time - she'll live without the bottom half! (She'll have to share eventually anyway, we have a new chin coming soon!)
 
i use a small broom and brush off the shavings from the wood sticks, toys, and bedding (i have a dish of bedding). and then whatever i could sweep up i vacuum it up and then shake off the liner before they go in the wash incase i missed any.
 
What about going to bedding rather than fleece? A lot of people prefer fleece and it's definitely got it's perks but it sounds like it's not working for you. If you got the metal pans or even the tiles with some kind of... plexiglass sides or something you could use bedding. With my little guy I only had to change the bedding once a week due to him having a whole FN to himself. I could even push it a few extra days if I was super busy without it getting super gross. Kind of depends if your chin will pee in the same place. I could sometimes get away with longer if I spot scooped the peed on hay from his favorite places. Tile without bedding or something, would be fairly nasty as it won't absorb the pee. They'd end up walking around in their own urine and their belly and feet would get nasty with pee.
 
What about going to bedding rather than fleece? A lot of people prefer fleece and it's definitely got it's perks but it sounds like it's not working for you. If you got the metal pans or even the tiles with some kind of... plexiglass sides or something you could use bedding. With my little guy I only had to change the bedding once a week due to him having a whole FN to himself. I could even push it a few extra days if I was super busy without it getting super gross. Kind of depends if your chin will pee in the same place. I could sometimes get away with longer if I spot scooped the peed on hay from his favorite places. Tile without bedding or something, would be fairly nasty as it won't absorb the pee. They'd end up walking around in their own urine and their belly and feet would get nasty with pee.

I used to use bedding with my old cage and hated it... Seeing as the CN is twice as big, I think I'll hate it twice as much. It ended up all over my room and was just a pain to clean.

You're right though, tiles would have the problem of non-absorbency. Chia doesn't tend to pee on things that aren't absorbant (never pees on the shelves or anyyything), so I might be able to get away with tiles and a litter pan. I might give that a try and see how that goes over.
 
Yeah that's what I ended up doing. At first I was putting shavings down on top of the tile, but then they just got everywhere and it was just easier to wipe them down instead. Your chin will probably only use one corner anyway, and in that case, you can put in a little pan with shavings and then it won't pee on the tiles at all!

Ah tiles is a fantastic idea!!

Do you usually let the chins pee on it, and then just wipe it down daily? I can totally handle doing that as opposed to washing the fleece! (heheh I'm an extremely busy person, always looking for faster ways to do things!)

I planned to go to Rona this evening so I'll probably get tiles along with the wood I was planning to get to re-shelve the bottom half of the cage so I can give her access again.
 
Yeah that's what I ended up doing. At first I was putting shavings down on top of the tile, but then they just got everywhere and it was just easier to wipe them down instead. Your chin will probably only use one corner anyway, and in that case, you can put in a little pan with shavings and then it won't pee on the tiles at all!

Yeah, I think that's my best bet. Even if I do fleece-lined litter pan instead of the shavings. I'm going to test out a bunch of set ups and see what works best.

I didn't end up getting tiles or wood tonight because the cutting shop was closed, grr! Also I'm going to get my dad to cut tiles for me so they fit super well, so I'll get them in my hometown rather than in the city. :3
 
Yes, a little pan would work great if she'll use one consistently. With the FN when I did bedding I just would scoop it out with a dustpan and use a lil dust broom. It was fairly easy to clean, only took maybe 10 minutes to clean the whole double cage. I'd then spray everything down with vinegar and wipe. My little guy would just run to the different section while I was cleaning and I'd clean right with him in the cage.
 
Yes, a little pan would work great if she'll use one consistently. With the FN when I did bedding I just would scoop it out with a dustpan and use a lil dust broom. It was fairly easy to clean, only took maybe 10 minutes to clean the whole double cage. I'd then spray everything down with vinegar and wipe. My little guy would just run to the different section while I was cleaning and I'd clean right with him in the cage.

Chia will only pee where it's absorbent, so I think the pan might work. In my old cage, after I stopped using the bedding for the whole bottom, I had a litter pan and fleece and she mainly peed in the pan.

I also think she tends to pee off the side of the cage, because I end up cleaning urine off my floor a lot too... :hair:
 
one of my cages has a wood bottom, and let me tell you, it was the worst decision i made when building Rhino's cage base! lol. so much has absorbed into the wood that i am looking to replace it already and i just built it last spring (i think? lol).

as for wood bits on fleece, take the fleece outside and give it a good snap like you would an area rug. that should get most of the wood off. works for my liners that get shavings all over them (dang chinnies..... why must you dump your litter bowls???? lol!)

as for peeing out the side of the cage, drape fleece down that side of the cage, so that if she continues to do it, the fleece gets it and not the wall or the floor. my Guss used to pee out the one corner of his cage, down the wall, and down the backside of the desk his cage is on....... yuck! moving shelves around and taking away the spot he peed has worked wonders.
 
one of my cages has a wood bottom, and let me tell you, it was the worst decision i made when building Rhino's cage base! lol. so much has absorbed into the wood that i am looking to replace it already and i just built it last spring (i think? lol).

as for wood bits on fleece, take the fleece outside and give it a good snap like you would an area rug. that should get most of the wood off. works for my liners that get shavings all over them (dang chinnies..... why must you dump your litter bowls???? lol!)

as for peeing out the side of the cage, drape fleece down that side of the cage, so that if she continues to do it, the fleece gets it and not the wall or the floor. my Guss used to pee out the one corner of his cage, down the wall, and down the backside of the desk his cage is on....... yuck! moving shelves around and taking away the spot he peed has worked wonders.

The fleece drape is a good idea, I've considered it I just never got around to it... I probably should, I don't know if chin pee can ruin hard wood, but I'd rather not find out!

The shaving all over the fleece liners was one reason I did away with shavings altogether. But chips of chewed wood is a whole other ballgame lol
 
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