How To Keep Guinea Pig Cage Clean

How to Clean your Guinea Pig Cage

---

C&C cages are meant to exist cleaned in identify. There's no need to elevator the base out of the filigree perimeter to take information technology outside to hose information technology downwards. That'southward unnecessary and impractical. After removing the bedding, spray the inside of the coroplast base of operations with a mixture of one-half water/half white vinegar and wipe clean with a rag, newspaper towels, or a soft castor. Rinse with a make clean, damp rag and replace the bedding.

A clean cage = happy, healthy piggies! They rely on you to make that happen.

Cleaning the Cage Basics

DAILY

Spot clean your cage daily or every bit needed.

• Remove whatsoever excess nutrient and waste.
• Remove any loose hay piles and replace with fresh hay (if outside a hay rack).
• Choice up whatsoever stray poos from fleece with a stiff brush and mini dust pan or a mini-vac.
• Scoop out and remove any wet, soiled sections in the Kitchen surface area -- stir it upwards or add together more than fresh, dry out bedding equally appropriate.
• Replace any wet Potty Pads, if needed.
• Meridian up the hay rack -- ever keep it full to overflowing.
• Keep fresh water in the water bottles.

Your mileage may vary. Information technology depends on a lot of factors with your bedding arrangement, your cage setup and your guinea pigs.

WEEKLY

Full muzzle cleaning at least weekly or as needed.

• Clean the Coroplast with a spray bottle of half h2o/half white vinegar.
• Empty the Kitchen or litter pan area, remove it and clean it thoroughly with the vinegar solution.
• Remove all fleece bedding. Remove the poos either in the muzzle or shake/brush them off subsequently you remove the fleece liner, depending on what works for you lot. Castor off the fleece with a stiff brush to remove hair, hay and poos. Some people find a lint roller works for them on the hair.
• Wash the fleece with a clean and clear detergent. Add together a half to a full cup of vinegar for odor control and help disinfecting. Dry on hot. NO dryer sheets or textile conditioners. The point is to proceed the fleece as porous as possible; additives clog its pores.
• Ever clean your dryer's lint trap out after every load.
• In the Kitchen area, replace with any fresh bedding you are using.
• Launder the water bottles and their snouts well with a canteen brush.
• Replace the hay rack with fresh hay.
• Clean any cozies as necessary and make sure any inside potty pads are clean and dry out.

How oftentimes should you lot make clean your muzzle?

Timing of Refreshes (Spot Cleanings) vs Full Cleanings

Timing is a challenge given our odd 7-twenty-four hour period weeks. The demand for refreshes may non work out well for scheduling. You about always want to practise a total cage cleaning at least once a week, typically on your weekend when you lot've got more time and attention to devote to being thorough. That makes refreshing the cage every 2, 3 or iv days somewhat of a claiming. You lot'll need to work that out. Under the best of bedding circumstances, you'll need to refresh midweek and full clean once a week. Sometimes, you lot need to refresh or make clean every other day. Sometimes every 3 days. Some people clean every single day. Everyone is different. But, "once a week" attention is NOT skilful enough.

Dirty cages can be a life-threatening wellness hazard

The bottomline on how often to clean the cage is -- as ofttimes as needed. Guinea pigs should never exist sitting in wet bedding or moisture fleece. Yous wouldn't want your child walking effectually in a wet, muddy diaper for very long. Same goes for the caged animals in our intendance. It's non merely smelly and disgusting, it's unhealthy for them. Their faces are right in it. Ammonia build upward is a far, far worse health hazard than whatsoever pine shaving phenols (smell) will ever be. URIs (upper respiratory infections) and hard-to-treat bumblefoot are life-threatening illnesses that can be brought on past muddy cages. Not to mention they become a breeding footing for bug infestations, bacteria, molds, and fungal infections similar ringworm. Keeping a clean cage is very important.

Ideally? Spot make clean every solar day.

Cleaning the Muzzle Details

Vinegar is a bang-up cleaning solution

• Repurpose a spray canteen and fill up with half water, half white vinegar. Information technology works GREAT for cleaning the Coroplast floors and walls of the cage.

Not only is vinegar anti-microbial, anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and super cheap past the gallon, it is an acrid. Urine is a base. Acids neutralize bases. Vinegar does a peachy task of cutting through and cleaning up urine. And of course, information technology is food and guinea pig safe. No need to spend coin on other cleaners in more plastic bottles, polluting the environment.

• Add ane/2 to ane cup of white vinegar to bedding laundry

Not simply does vinegar work cracking on Coroplast, adding it to your fleece laundry helps sanitize and deodorize your fleece. You can soak heavily soiled fabrics in vinegar to help bring them back to normal too. Vinegar helps keep your fleece porous and wicking properly.

Actually tough stains on the plastic?

Soak it in pure vinegar for a few hours. Scrub. Rinse, repeat as necessary. It Will come up from Coroplast. Note to self though -- if you accept super tough stains on your plastic, you aren't doing the bedding right. You either demand to change your bedding system, make clean it more often, or a combination of both. Bad stains are usually a sign that the republic of guinea pigs aren't getting proper caging intendance.

Cleaning the Canvas of a Midwest Cage?

Non and so easy. This is why we recommend replacing the sail lesser of the Midwest cage with a walled, Coroplast insert. Or use our Fleece Flippers as bedding which incorporate a Coroplast insert to help forestall urine from seeping into the textile of the canvas. Unfortunately, the more you scrub and clean the canvas, the more you scrub off its 'water-resistant' blanket, leaving it all the more susceptible to retaining stains, odors and debris. While our Coroplast insert solves the cleaning upshot entirely, any other flat, plastic-backed or water-resistant-backed cage liners volition not protect the canvas walls from directly urine hits or from urine seeping under it from the corners and walls. Y'all simply have to do the all-time you can.

Practice yous accept a Kitchen Surface area?

If you lot are using our recommended bedding arroyo, our Hybrid Organisation -- a combination of a kitchen area and fleece bedding -- then hopefully, yous are using a disposable bedding of your choice in the kitchen expanse. All of our Kitchens can exist slid forwards from the end of the muzzle for better access for refreshes and full cleanings. Our Cavy Cafe tin can pretty easily be lifted out of the cage, and the used bedding tin be dumped into a wide-mouth garbage bag/bin in front of you or outdoors. Merely exist conscientious if it's really messy. However, most people clean the kitchens in place. Information technology's pretty piece of cake.

Some people use fleece in the kitchen expanse, although honestly, that rather defeats the purpose other than providing a more contained area for loose hay. The indicate of putting disposable bedding in the kitchen area is that a) that should be the area where the bulk of republic of guinea pig excrement ends up and b) the poos can be mixed into the loose bedding and dried out better, so that the guinea pigs aren't walking around in mushy poos.

Source: https://www.guineapigcagesstore.com/how-to-clean-your-guinea-pig-cage

Share this post