Fleece vs. Bedding

[SeeleyAnne]

Hey guys, I need some advice on cage flooring. Right now we use a fleece liner with a litter pan for the bottom of our critter nation, but lately, it's become a little too stinky for us. We live in a basement, so there's not much air flow, and it smells like urine after just the second day. With the snow outside, it's become a bit of a hassle to take the fleece liners out to shake them and then wash them. So I guess my question is, would using pine bedding on the whole floor of the cage make less of a smell? I would probably need to order the bass pans because the critter nation just has those shallow plastic pans. For those of you who have tried both, which do you prefer? Is the pine bedding super messy, even with 4 or 5" metal pans? Does it get all over the floor? Any input would be great, thanks!

 

[greychins]

I just have the 2" bass pans for my FNs but when I used shavings they ended up everywhere. The smell was less than now (when I'm using liners), and I'm debating using the liners as an alternate to the shredded paper bedding that I now use. Because they literally do smell by the second day, and I can't afford enough sets (or that much wash at the laundromat when they all have to be washed twice) to swap them out every other day.

Even if you did have the higher pan, I would still think you'd end up with shavings on the floor. I've now moved over to mostly FNs, but I used to have a ton of those superpet cages with the 5"+ plastic bottoms, and I still ended up with shavings outside of the cage. The chins run on the shavings and they get kicked up and out of the cage. Nothing really keeps it in very well, unfortunately.

 

[SeeleyAnne]

Hmm, that's what I was afraid of. I'm having a baby this summer, and when the baby starts crawling, I don't want to worry about the baby picking up shavings or poop off the floor. I wonder if I could just put up a baby gate around the cage or something... I think vacuuming up the shavings off the ground would probably be easier than the daily changing of the liners though.

 

[SeeleyAnne]

Also, how do I custom order the pans to be taller than 2.5"? Do I have to email them?

 

[robertchins]

You might try replacing fleece and shavings with just tile. Our human thought would be that this is too hard, but we tried fleece with our chin and she had no interest. And washing was a hassle. We now have no fleece and shavings only in a litter bowl. The entire floor of her cage is tile, and we have tile on many of the wood perches. Our chin loves it. Maybe it's the coolness of the tile vs fleece and shavings? This was the best move we ever made, since cleaning the tile is much easier than the fleece, and there's no shavings flying around.

 

[SeeleyAnne]

So you just wipe down the tile every few days, and then have a litter pan with shavings? Is it stinky?

 

[robertchins]

Yes, we vacuum or sweep the poop and wipe down the tile with paper towel or nature's miracle cage wipes. It doesn't smell, and it's easy to keep clean! Our chin sometimes pees in her litter bowl with shavings.