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[chinclub]

Here is another questions I'd love to hear your thoughts about.    When you clean your pans how do you do it?  Do you just dump the old shavings and add new, do you wash your pans (or spray them down) each time, if so with what?  Do you have any tips for prolonging the life of your pans?

[ThreeLilChins]

We wash our pans out every time. We use a fragrance free, antibacterial soap & water. We spray them down with a garden house that has one of those nozzles. It really doesn't take to long but then again we only have five cages. We haven't had to replace any pans yet. It has been about a year since we got our new cages. We don't have any ideas on how to prolong the pan life.

[Joyce]

Hi Jamie,

We wash out our pans every time we clean the cages.  The pans go outside and get washed out with paper towels and a solution of kitchen sink antibacterial soap (Dawn, Palmolive) then rinsed well with the hose and dried well. There is a station set up in the back yard by our deck for pan and entire cage washings. 
We use Carefresh bedding.
Don't have any special tips yet as to keeping our pans alive though!  So far we have completely lost one pan to rust, YUK!!!  It was from a local independent pet store.  So we never went back there.  And one or two of our pans (from a huge company we all know) have begun to bubble.  These pans are supposedly powder coated too!  Hmmmmmmmm............
I guess when pans start to go on us they can be taken to a local machine shop and be sand blasted and then powder coated if they are willing to do it for you.  Hey, it's worth a shot huh?

[McCaille]

Ok, well I only scrub pans down once a month. If their particularly bad I'll give them a spray and cleaning, but most often I do a rotation and each cage gets a scrubbing once a month. We have 7 larger cages, 4 smaller cages and 2 runs that we use, so three weeks I'll scrub 3 of the larger cage pans and one of the smaller, the 4th week I'll do the runs and the remaining small cage. Pans get a good scrub with antibacterial soap and warm water, rinsed with hot water, then dried thoroughly.

[Leslie]

This is a good topic, because I have been wondering lately about other people's methods too.

I have plastic slide out pans, and I wash them with dish soap and dry them once a week.  But in the places that get the most soiled, the plastic always corrodes.  I wish there was a way to prevent this (other than cleaning the pans every day).  I guess for plastic pans, they only have a certain life span and I'll have to replace them eventually.

[Jo Ann]

A fun subject for us!!!   

    With 100+ cages, it really gets fun around here.

    When we only had 20, I use to dump, scrape, hose down, then spray them with a solution of iodine, let set for 20 minutes, then spray again with the hose and dry out ... that did great for the summer ... BUT ... when winter came along, it had to be done in the bath/shower.  You do not want to do this ...  I sprayed the inside of the pans with iodine, then, after the pans set 20 minutes in the bath tub, I used steaming hot water with the hand-held shower-head.  Of course I did not think about the iodine also going up in steam ...    for the next 4 months, every time we took a hot shower, we had bright purple walls until the moisture on the walls dried.  When there was no moisture in the bathroom it looked normal.   

     Iodine does not go well with what are suppose to be white plastic trays under the 8 play cages, but it cleans them properly.  And I cover them with bedding. 

     Bill bought me a big container, 3' square, that has a heating element in it (normally used to water cattle in the winter) ... I use the iodine solution in it ... soak the pans 20 minutes, air-dry or rinse and dry ... depending on how many I am doing and the amount of time I have.  Does better than anything else we have tried. 

     Spraying with vinegar water also seems to help.

     A note on pans for cages: 

(1) Plastic is OK if you have a floor between the chin and the plastic tray. (slide out)
(2) Galvanized steel is good, but rusts ... you can sand any rust down, spray it with a rust inhibitor, then paint it, but that will slowly corrode and has to be re-done.  Being careful to use a spray paint that is not toxic.
(3) We decided to get smart one year and have our trays made of aluminum, it won't rust, but is a little more expensive.   What we did not know at that time was, because it is a soft metal, the chins will eat it.
(4) Then we decided to go with stainless steel ... very expensive ... But ... looks better and seems to last forever.  Just do not clean with bleach!!!  We have not changed all the trays to stainless steal ... don't know if we will ... maybe  eventually.  Big bucks involved, but probably would be worth it in the long run.   


 
Jo Ann

[hope]

My cages are in the racks & they have slide out trays so I just pull them part way out & clean them with trigene once a week & I only use a thin layer of newpaper on the bottom which I change daily or every second day depending on the chin

[Debbie.nl.ca]

Hot soapy water, I like palmolive, easy on the hands.
I wipe the pans every night with a wet cloth. Then I only have about 20 cages.
I remove wet spots, push what is left and clean to the pee spots with a soapy cloth,& fill with clean shavings.
Then about every 2 weeks, {and I alternate them}, I take pans  out vacuum the whole cage and wash the whole pan and walls of cages.
I like vinegar for stains on wood, leaves everything smelling so fresh.Works awesome on the plexie glass too, and most my cages are made of plexie glass.
So much depends on your set up.
My pans are stainless steel, open to the cage, and most the walls are solid.
My shelves just sit on braces and pop right out.
In a few minutes I can have everything out of my cages. Another few to vacuum & wipe everything off then pop it all back.
100-200 run type cages would take much longer I'd think.

[chinclub]

Don't have any special tips yet as to keeping our pans alive though!  So far we have completely lost one pan to rust, YUK!!! 
 

    Here is what I learned from my mentor years ago. When my pans start getting bad I take them outside and sand them until they are smooth. (we have an electric sander so it only takes a few minutes.)  Then we spray paint them with a gray primer.  They are then good as new!  We only have to replace a pan when the rust has eatten through to the point you can punch a hole in the pan.
    Don't wait until the pan gets really bad before you do this.  As soon as we see any signs of buildup or corrosion we do this.  Even though chinchilla urine doesn't smell those spots on the pans will hold odor.  With 50 chinchilla pans in a small room it can make a big difference!

My mentor told me last week that he has moved on to latex primer painted on with a brush.  It coats much better and lasts longer.

Just be sure you read the paint cans and be sure you are buying a product that is non-toxic.

[Debbie.nl.ca]

And geez how could I forget spring and winter cleans.
At least twice a year the whole room gets gutted and wash down with bleach,cages shelves everything, well everything in my whole house gets that twice a year.
I'm a cleaning fanatic, and bleach I find the best.
I only have one nonstainless steel pan, and it gets sanded and painted once a year, as does the floor in their room.

[Asikovsek]

I use plastic pans in my cages..there is metal floor in the cages so the chins dont come in contact with the plastic trays...also I use liners in the bottom of the trays...you can buy them anywhere and because I have a metal floor blocking the trays the chins cant chew up the liners....all I have to do is pull out the liners and all the bedding on them whipe the tray down really quick just to get rid of any bacteria and boom done..i like the plastic trays because they are easy to clean and they dont rust...the only problem I do have is the metal floor area that seperates is rough to take care of I seem to lose more cages to rust but atleast clean up is easy..lol

[Jo Ann]

I use plastic pans in my cages ...there is metal floor in the cages ... the only problem I do have is the metal floor area that seperates is rough to take care of I seem to lose more cages to rust but atleast clean up is easy..lol

When you clean your cages are you cleaning the floor of the cage?  If not, you should be ... you may not see the urine, but, when the chin pees, it runs over the wire into the tray ... this makes the wire dirty ... it has to be cleaned ... this will stop most of the rusting.  Urine is acid based.

all I have to do is pull out the liners and all the bedding on them wipe the tray down really quick just to get rid of any bacteria and boom done..

I hope you are disinfecting the tray instead of just wiping it out.

  Jo Ann

[Asikovsek]

Yes I do clean the metal at the bottom of the cage I scrub it down....and I use a gental disinfectant to whipe down the plastic trays

[Jo Ann]

  Then, I don't understand why they are corroding so badly.   Normally metal corrodes when moisture stays on it.  How long does a wire floor last before you have to replace it?  What guage wire are you using?

  Jo Ann

[Asikovsek]

im not sure about the guage but I seems like I have to replace them about every 2 years