Housekeeping tips?

[Caroline]

Fall is here, soon it will be winter and with it the wonderful season of many weeks of Liquid Sunshine here in the Pacific Northwest. I am looking for tips to make cage cleaning easier (or at least not as wet). At the moment I take the fleece cage liners out to the yardwaste bin, give them a good shake and throw them in the wash. The same is done with the trays at the bottoms of the cages, except of course they don't go in the wash but rather get hosed down on the lawn. I do all of this twice a week.
What do you all do to simplify cage cleaning, especially those with many chins and those that live in deep freezes in the winter? So glad I don't live in Winnipeg anymore!!

 

[mishellyshel]

because i am lazy and have 10 chins this is the method I use to cut down on time.

every night i do a clean sweep of their cages. remove all poop, hay & shavings tossed from their litter boxes. i do use litter boxes in every cage and have found that over time they use them more & more. I dump shavings every other day with the exception of my pair they get dumped daily. sometimes i add a small handful or turn the tray if they seem to pee in one spot. for 9 cages this takes me a minimum of 30 - 40 minutes but this does involve at least 2 to 4 chins coming out. I usually take 1 chin out and clean his & 3 other cages (or two fn towers). than i move over to my more needy group and take out 1 and clean 2 cages, take out another & clean 2 cages and finally my Richie comes out and i do his cage, clean up, get ready for bed and then put him back.
the one trick i learned in some of the cages is to lay an additional piece of fleece where they pee in those cages that they do not exclusively use the litter box or my rescue who dumps her water dish. i get smaller pieces of fleece and fold them and lay them in the area where they pee. I usually change this piece almost every night. it has really cut back on the odor as well as keep those cages cleaner and easier to maintain.

One time per week I do a complete clean, where I remove the fleece, vacuum under and around the trays, wipe the trays with either clorox wipes (cause im lazy!) or spray my organic sun & earth spray. i lay new fleece, wipe down all shelves, housing, marble, etc.
I try to break this up into 2 nights, 2 towers one night, 2 the next plus rescue. sometimes i do 1 tower a night.

I shake all my fleece at once. usually try to store it in a big bag so it doesnt smell up my laundry room. I agree when there is snow on the ground or it is freezing it really is a pain. i have been known to get a big black garbage bag and shake them out in there during snow storms!!

hopefully that all makes sense.

 

[Caroline]

I like the idea of placing small squares of fleece in the corners and switching them out daily. Clorox wipes sounds like a good idea. I could probably make some homemade cage wipes by making some changes to my homemade babywipes recipe to save money.

 

[ChinnyMom]

with cleaning wipes (clorox, lysol, etc) i would rinse the pans well before putting them back in the cage. those chemicals are strong!

 

[Caroline]

Lol, I knew that someone would pick up on that one, and not to worry, that goes without saying.

 

[ChinnyMom]

but for new or ill informed chin owners, we need to make sure things like that don't go without saying.

when i started in the chin world by babysitting the most loveable lil girl named Gery, her owner supplied me with lysol wipes to clean the cage and said nothing about rinsing. good thing i came here and asked!

 

[Brittany]

This system is quick and works very well for me:

Nightly: Shake out liners

Weekly: Change liners, clean pan with 50/50 water/vinegar solution

Everyother week: completely remove pans, scrub with water/vinegar, clean with soap/water

Every 4 months: completely gut cages, clean all surface, clean and sand wood shelves, houses, etc..

 

[Caroline]

Vinegar sounds like a great idea, rather than chemicals. It cuts through calcium deposits. The thought of using Lysol makes me shudder, it is deadly for cats if used in their litter boxes.

 

[Brittany]

If you hadn't already heard this tip, you can also add vinegar with detergent when you wash your fleece. It helps to cut the urine odor. We use a lot of vinegar at my house :thumbsup:

 

[Caroline]

If you hadn't already heard this tip, you can also add vinegar with detergent when you wash your fleece. It helps to cut the urine odor. We use a lot of vinegar at my house :thumbsup:

How much vinegar and what kind?

 

[Brittany]

I use white distilled vinegar, I buy the bulk size bottle at walmart. It's with groceries not cleaning supplies. I just eyeball the measuremets (I'm Italian, a little of this, a pinch of that ) It's probably around a cup or so per load.

 

[liewwan]

My 30 min per day and never have to do big scrub down routine (2 fN cage):
Hand pick all hay (garbage can next to me), vacuum (bye bye poo, hay, pellets), wipe down the cages (bars included) with vinegar and water with damp cloth and all done. When I do fleece change I wipe down the pans with the vinegar and water. Now if only I do that to the rest of the house daily ha.

 

[Rebecca1122]

Here's my schedule:
Before bed, I do a little cleaning - hand pick hay + vacuum poop - I don't want him running around with lots of poop already, so I clean it up. Usually, he doesn't poop much during the day so I don't have to clean at night.
In the morning, I vacuum hay and poop and pellets (he always throws food and digs it out of his bowl)
Then weekly, I scrub the cage and shelves down. I'm going to do that tomorrow - I will have had him a week on Friday

 

[mishellyshel]

i really like this product:

http://sunandearth.com/productdetailspage.aspx?Pid=11

it is what i use almost every night on thier marble slabs and sometimes their pans.

i only use the wipes on the weekly changes and only in the spots where the pee is on the metal, i then wipe with a damp paper towel. but my go to product is the sun & earth stuff. i absolutely can not stand the smell of vinegar but i do suck it up and use it in my wash. plain white vinegar. i buy it by the gallon.

 

[Caroline]

My 30 min per day and never have to do big scrub down routine (2 fN cage):
Hand pick all hay (garbage can next to me), vacuum (bye bye poo, hay, pellets), wipe down the cages (bars included) with vinegar and water with damp cloth and all done. When I do fleece change I wipe down the pans with the vinegar and water. Now if only I do that to the rest of the house daily ha.

What is your ratio if vinegar to water?