Miscellany | Snoopy, Guinea Pig Costs, and Dinnerly
My Snoopy laptop decal
When you guys read my TurboTax post and saw the picture of my laptop with Snoopy on it, you wondered where I got it.
Well, Zoe bought it for me for Christmas, and I love it! My laptop is now the cutest one in the whole wide world.
This is the one she bought on Amazon. It's $7 with free shipping, and there are all sorts of designs you can get with Snoopy and other Peanuts characters.
Some people complained about the decal being hard to apply, but I thought it was very easy. So...just ignore those reviewers. 😉
Guinea Pig Upkeep
Reader Kim noticed that Sonia and Zoe have a fleece bedding setup for their guinea pig and she was wondering about the cost of that plus guinea pig upkeep overall.
Sonia researched this fleece bedding idea before we adopted the pig, and I have to admit, I was a bit skeptical. But it works out a lot better than I imagined.
Basically, you put puppy pads on the bottom of the cage and then lay polarfleece over top.
That way, you can easily scoop the poop every day, and the puppy pads below the fleece absorb the pee.
This means the pig has a clean and dry surface to live on, and I'd say the smell is much better than it is with regular bedding.
They bought a large box of puppy pads on Amazon for $16.99, and they still have a bunch left even after three months of using them. So, this is definitely cheaper than using bedding.
The puppy pads have to be thrown away, but the fleece is infinitely reusable (they just wash it in the washing machine).
If you were previously composting your guinea pig bedding, then this is a more trash-producing option (albeit a cheaper one!).
But if you were throwing away your bedding before, then I don't think this is going to be any worse on the trash-production front, and I think it just might produce a smaller volume of trash.
So, verdict on the fleece bedding: definitely cheaper, cleaner, and fresher smelling than regular bedding. But it might product more trash than regular bedding (assuming you'd compost it.)
Due to the design of our cage, the girls do have to pin the fleece along the edges of the cage, or Leslie manages to burrow underneath the fleece. That's a bit of a pain, but you wouldn't necessarily need to do that with every kind of cage.
Aside from the puppy pads, Sonia and Zoe have to buy pellets and Timothy hay for Leslie. Luckily, neither of these is very expensive. I'd venture to guess it costs less than $10/month for hay/pellets.
Their pig also eats fresh veggies, but that's a very small cost (and I don't make them pay for the veggies!).
Free shipping on Dinnerly
Remember when I posted about Dinnerly, a service that's like Hello Fresh, but is half the price?
Well, they just sent me an email with a code that'll give you free shipping on your first box.
Just click here, and then use code AW18DINFREE to get your free shipping.
(Here's my full review of Dinnerly.)
And that concludes this edition of miscellany!
Ohhh Dinnerly looks fascinating. Half the price!!?
I love your decal. My husband use to have a Pikachu one where Pikachu tries to take a bite out of the apple logo 🙂 so cute!
You can be reusable (ie washable) puppy pads. Didn’t think of it when we were fostering two puppies this summer, but saw some later on. We’ll buy some next summer when we (hopefully!) foster puppies again.
Yes! I use the reusable ones for my dog with a tiny bladder. I couldn't handle the waste (and cost) of throwing away all those puppy pads.
Love the guinea pig set up. FYI guinea pigs can also be litter trained, which would work super well with your fleece setup. We do a similar set up with my son’s rabbits. Rabbits are also very easy to litter train. We put a small litter box with horse pine pellet bedding in the corner of the cage and use either pee pads or cheap car mats from the dollar store for the rest of the cage. Bunny uses the litter box and the rest of the cage is nice and clean fir sleeping and hopping around.
My daughter's rabbit is semi-litter trained. The rabbit definitely uses the litter box for peeing, but he does poop outside of it. Between the poop and hay everywhere, I can't call him a tidy pet! He is our first and LAST rabbit!
If you tuck his hay into empty toilet paper rolls it is a lot less messy. Also you can buy pressed cubes of hay, also much less messy but more expensive. And some rabbits are more messy than others, just like people! Some of my son’s rabbits are very neat and today and some are just pigs!
I still say that's the cutest guinea pig I've ever seen.
We don't have anything in a cage (at the moment, anyway) but that's good to know for the future -- I have grandkids, and who knows when they might want a guinea pig or rabbit?
I love the laptop decal, too. That's so clever.
I don't think I would need a dinner service, but it's good to know Dinnerly is so much cheaper. That might be a good gift to give someone -- I assume they do gift certificates or a subscription for a limited time?
She IS a super cute piggy!
A face like a scoop of Neapolitan ice cream!
(not quite pink, though).
Wow I never knew it would take so much work to keep a guinea pig. It's so cute, so it's totally worth it!
I've been thinking about having pet fish for a while. It was my hobby when I was little. Then life got busy. I love seeing those beautiful fish swimming happily (or not) in the tank every day!
You have probably already figured this out but guinea pigs are a great place to use veggies that are getting a little past what a human enjoys consuming so they aren't wasted - I call my guinea pigs my compost bin. 🙂 I know you do actually compost and are really good about not having food waste so this isn't probably as helpful for you but.....just an idea!
Woah, the guinea pig bedding idea is awesome! I always went with the bedding from the pet store. It was such a pain to deal with and it did smell. I did switch to one brand that was super soft and almost like sand. That one didn't smell and the guinea pigs/hamsters seemed to like it more. I like the fleece option though!
I read this post with special interest, my daughters have long wanted a guinea pig. We have allergies though and I think the traditional hay/straw bedding would aggravate them. (Aside from the fur of the piggie itself.) How often do you have to wash the fleece and change the pee pad?
We have major allergies in our house (both husband and son are allergic to "fur and feathers" as well as grass). Cats and dogs are COMPLETELY out of the question. But our little piggie doesn't bother them at all, nor does her hay! Fleece bedding keeps the dust WAY down too.
Guinea pigs themselves don't seem to bother most people, it's more the hay... but that's also usually not a huge problem as there are several different kinds of hay they can have, so if you're allergic to one, try another. Those piggies are so worth it! We dont do the pee pad thing, it's wasteful. We have 2 layers of absorbant u-haul layers sandwiched by fleece all sewn together neatly (I got these from etsy though because sewing is not my thing). This way there is no waste, we'll never have to buy anything bedding wise ever again and it's not at all smelly with all those layers. It's changed once a week.
We buy bulk timothy hay at a farm/feed store. So much less expensive! Also, guinea pig droppings are AMAZING fertilizer!!
I found a very helpful youtube video on how to make the fleece bedding so you don't have to use the pins. I am a very basic sewer in that I can sew straight lines and its good enough for piggy to pee on 🙂
We use towels from Goodwill instead of puppy pads - no trash at all then!
You can get prefold diapers to use under the fleece. No need to use puppy pads. Advertise for free prefolds. You'll get plenty. Easy to wash once or twice a week.
Wow, I didn't know that this was even possible for a guinea pig!! I thought they had to have the shavings. This might be a game changer, my kids would love a little furry pet like that, but I'm guessing my cat might not. Decisions, decisions!
Hello! Two piggie family here and we also use fleece bedding. The shavings would have driven me batty! I actually found a tutorial online that said to use either an absorbent mattress pad or moving pad, sandwiched between two pieces of fleece. This eliminates the need for the puppy pads. I made two sets so one can be in the wash. I bought a moving blanket from a nearby UHaul store (see link) and loosely followed the tutorial below. I do NOT sew so these would be a breeze for you and your girls. 😉 They can use that $17 for puppy pads on fun toys for the piggies instead!
https://www.uhaul.com/MovingSupplies/Packing-Supplies/Furniture-Pad?id=2670
https://pethelpful.com/rodents/Reusable-Guinea-Pig-Cage-Liner-Sewing-Tutorial
You mentioned pellets and hay. Does that include vitamin C drops? Guinea pigs don't produce their own vitamin C.
The pellets actually contain stabilized vitamin C, and the fresh veggies she eats also provide her with vitamin C. So, I'm guessing she's good on the C front!
Guinea pigs have a biological need to burrow and to have access to natural bedding like what they'd find in nature. Please at least give the little guy a corner of natural bedding so it can have some connection with nature/organic matter and so it can fulfill its need to burrow. Surely human preferences shouldn't totally dominate over animals' needs.
We put a loose layer of fleece on top of the bottom fleece that our pig loves to burrow in! She will eventually pull it into her house! As long as she has that top layer that she can "play with," she leaves the bottom layer alone. 🙂
My guinea pig used to eat all the veggie scraps - carrot peelings, tomato ends, lettuce bits. My Mom even became friends with the fruit and veggie guy at the grocery store and he would save stuff for us. She ate very well.
Hey, some months back after FG wrote about Dinnerly, I tried it. I was excited because I liked the price! No complaints really about the quality of the food. But they try so hard to make it simple, that somehow they ruined mac n cheese. Basically as I recall they had you try and thicken it with pasta water from the macaroni and it was quite lacking. My husband said no more. I wish it would have worked out, b/c the price. Just wanted to share. Moved on to Home Chef which is awesome.
My 3 piggies favorite toy was a cardboard oatmeal canister with both ends open. I had one piggie who was a bit on the chunky side so I would always cut it down the middle just so she couldn't get stuck. They also loved carrot tops. One of the men at the farm stand would save them for me because most customers didn't want them. I also used fleece bedding with towels underneath. I would wash with hot water and bleach every week. Now that I no longer have piggies, there are always doggie towels available at my house!
For something super cute to watch look up guinea pig agility on YouTube. You can make your own agility course for your piggy to play on! Rabbits also can do agility, check out rabbit hopping videos. My son has two rabbits that compete in rabbit hopping and have been featured on The Dodo.
Aww, Zoe LOVES The Dodo! So many cute animals videos.
Dinnerly is an offshoot of Marley spoon( a Martha stewart venture). I tried Marley spoon and the meals were " Blah" in my opinion. Very overpriced too and both meals were damaged in some way.
Oh, interesting! I didn't realize the two were related.