New Arrival, New Craft!

This Sunday, our little family gained a new small-and-fuzzy member from a local exotics rescue.

His name is Harington, and he's a Texel Cavy... or just a fancy-ass guinea pig, colloquially. He's the sweetest thing, naturally, but his curly textured fur is rather long, so I didn't want to use a standard shavings cage substrate. He gets tangled up in hay enough as it is!

While I was looking for alternatives, I stumbled across this tutorial and decided to go for it! The idea is to use fleece as a "wicking" material to an ultra-absorbent and waterproof material. This absorbs the urine, and the feces can easily be swept up daily, making for a cleaner cage, less expense, and a happier, healthier gpig.

I grabbed some generic waterproof mattress pad protectors from Wal*Mart. In case you're wondering dimensions and materials:

Using the bottom of my cage as a template, I made a pattern out of cardboard and cut the mattress pads down to size (28" x 16"). The dimensions I used were of the bottom inside the plastic tub. After that, I lay it down on no-pill fleece and cut a small border around the mattress pad. I sewed around the edge of the mattress pad (zig-zag stitch).

I measured more fleece for the side panels. Mine were 29" x 11" and 17" x 11". I used half-inch margins just to make it easy on myself. 11" is twice the height of the side the plastic base of the cage, that way the sides roll over and look pretty on the outside, too. It also helps prevent Harington from pulling the fleece into the cage and making a mess everywhere.

The next step is to connect the side pieces together into a large loop. Keep all the seams to the same "side" of the circle. Before moving on, make sure your side pieces fit the base. You'll end up with something like this:

The hardest part is last, of course! The bottom waterproof/fleece piece must be attached to the side panels. I used a straight stitch with very small margins to prevent loss of interior space. The corners were very difficult - make sure that they are stitched over very tightly!

I threw down a couple of generic animal pee-pads before laying down the cage liner.

Add your lid and accessories. The fleece moved quite easily for the notches where the lid attaches. The side clasps are secure. No extra holes in the fleece are necessary, and this is pretty thick fleece.

Add the guinea pig...

And let the good times roll!

Just to give a little review of why fleece bottoms are GREAT:
- The absorbent layers and daily sweeps keep the cage clean for about a week, making for a healthy environment.
- No worries that the guinea pig will get shavings stuck in their fur.
- I looks neater than shavings, but is still just as cozy.
- If I get tired of the design I created, I can just redo this process with a new pattern of fleece. Maybe for holidays?
- MONEY. You'll save more making a couple of these and rotating/laundering them once a week than buying litter and cleaning supplies over the lifespan of the gpig.
- TIME. I have a small zoo now, with the addition of Harington. Finals are swiftly approaching. Cleaning daily takes all of 1 minute, and I can throw this in the wash with my stuff once a week.






I still need to make one more so I can rotate the two weekly, but this project was a bit time-consuming for a week with an exam.