Daily Cleaning
Spot clean daily as needed. Remove any excess food and waste. Pick up any stray poos from fleece with a stiff brush and mini dust pan Refill hayrack so there’s always unlimited hay. Change water bottles with fresh water every day.
Full Cleaning
C&C cages are meant to be cleaned in place. There's no need to lift the base out of the grid perimeter to dump it out, or take it outside to hose it down. Cleaning frequency depends on your guinea pigs’ urine output, size of the cage, etc., but generally once a week is suficient.
Easiest method is to use a “Kitchen” Yes, guinea pigs poop and eat in the same place. That’s just their nature. Our Cavy Cafe can be lifted out of the cage, and the used bedding can be dumped into a large plastic bag or garbage bag/bin or compost.
Vinegar is not only an excellent antibacterial and great overall cleaning agent, it’s non-toxic and cheap. Fill an empty spray bottle with ½ plain white vinegar and ½ water. Spray the kitchen, wipe clean and fill with fresh disposable bedding. Straight vinegar can be used on build up of urine/bedding spots—just soak a cloth with full strength vinegar (or spray with straight vinegar and place on top a washcloth soaked (and wrung out) with hot water, let it sit on the stubborn areas for a while before scrubbing. It WILL come clean off the Coroplast. If you find you have many stubborn spots, consider increasing the depth of disposable bedding or changing the bedding more frequently.
While piggies are enjoying floor time, remove fleece from the rest of the cage and wash as directed, or scoop out the bedding with a dust pan and hand broom into a garbage can with plastic bag. Use a whisk broom to get the small dust particles out of the base and corners. Spray the base and sides with vinegar solution, wipe clean, dry, replace bedding.
Midwest Cage canvas cleaning
The more you scrub and clean the canvas, the more you scrub off its coating, which leaves it more susceptible to more stains and odors. Coroplast is completely plastic, and we highly recommend replacing the canvas bottom of the Midwest cage with our fitted Coroplast insert
