Hello and welcome to George’s Guinea Pig World.  I’m Percy, and I run this place with Kevin.  George set it up in 2009, which is before I was born.  I live in a nice cage next to Oscar, and his brother Midge lives next to Kevin.

Our A to Z theme is “Our Favourite Things”

N is for New Fleeces

There are lots of things suitable for lining the bottom of a guinea pig house (or cage, or run).  We mostly have fleeces on top of newspaper (although Mummy now also uses absorbent pads* because we tend to pee in the same places which makes a soggy mess).

Sometimes we get new fleeces, and they’re lovely.  My tartan fleece was nearly new when I got it, only Hector had used it before.  Oscar got new fleeces for Christmas, because the old ones hadn’t been proper fleeces and she wanted to throw them out.  Midge says he needs new fleeces, and Mummy agrees, and says he might have them for his birthday.  And Kevin says he has the original fleeces for the run, that Fred and George had, and they are still really good, and he has the one that came with him and Colman from Jersey with paw prints on it, and also the newer butterfly one, and they are all great, so he thinks we’re sissies.  Or else he just treats them better than the rest of us.

Mummy says a new fleece has to be washed a couple of times to get it ready to be used, otherwise pee just sits on top, instead of draining through to the absorbent layer underneath.  That’s the only disadvantage of a new fleece, as far as I can see, since otherwise they are nice and soft and with no old boar glue patches that didn’t wash out.  Um, I suppose you want me to explain what boar glue is.  Well, let’s just say only boars produce it, it’s a thick liquid and it dries to a gluey lump.

Anyway, here is Oscar with his Christmas present of new fleeces (there are some food pellets on it to encourage him to step on it).

*Mummy here.  ‘Puppy pads’ are often used, but they tend to be treated to attract dogs, which might not be a good chemical in a guinea pig home.  Unscented pads are found in the health supplies section on Amazon – search for incontinence pads or under pads.  They work out cheaper than the equivalent amount of newspaper, if you can afford to buy in bulk! They can’t be recycled or composted though.

I get cheap fleece throws from household stores like The Range; they tend to be the right size for my cages when folded, and they are cheaper than buying by the metre in a fabric store.