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Since you already have it, you can try it out and see how well it works with a couple layers of towels under it. I've seen a lot of people who swear by washing them in hot water with detergent and bleach 3 or 4 times to get rid of any extra repellant. I did notice a drastic difference in absorbancy after I'd done mine 3 times in hot water.

I do have a couple of fleece pieces where the water would sit on on the fabric in puddles, BUT if I just barely touched the water it would suddenly get sucked up. These secondary fleece pieces that I use tend to smell faster, and the fleece feels moisture faster as well. I have to use lots of extra things on top when I use those particular fleece pieces. Things like hand towels and baby blankets that ARE absorbant have to be placed in heavy use areas like under hideys, and changed daily. These less effective pieces of fleece work okay, but if I could do it again, I would have been more careful in my initial choice of fleece.

You will KNOW when it's not working when

-the top of the fleece is wetter than the bottom absorbant layer,
-that the pigs feet feel cold and damp when you pick them up
-that the poops/stray hay pieces get soggy or dragged across the fleece to make a lovely poop soup, which leaves stains on the fabric.

Fleece is best used with large Cube and Coroplast cages.

Fleece must never be allowed to be moist for long hours. If you find your fleece has any moisture when you press your hand on it, on a consistent basis then you need to change something.

Things that have to be addressed depending on the problem are
-a bigger cage,
-more absorbant layers or more effective absorbancy
-finding or additional layers of fleece.
-removing poop more often such as twice daily
-changing the fleece more often
-changing out the absorbant layer between fleece changes.

Many people with smaller cages and/or more pigs find that they have to make 2-7 fleece changes a week, larger cages with less pigs can stay dry and odor free for as long as 7-10 days. As pigs get larger, adjustments often have to be made.

I have a couple of blankets for my own bed, they were marketed on the label as "micro-fleece". This is supposed to be a very asborbant type of fleece yet neither of them absorb anything, and I find myself sweating under them quite a bit, yet the blankets stay dry.

I've had these super soft blankets for over a year, and noticed them getting a little "pilly". So I tested them last week as I thought they would be good to retire to piggy bedding. Sadly, the water roolllled around all over the blanket, then I took a tissue and soaked up every drop off the top. Not a single hint of moisture drained through to the bottom. Even after 10 minutes. So just because it says it's "Fleece" or "polyester", doesn't mean it's the kind of fleece you need.( I guess it's like saying "vinyl" which can mean anything from thick textured plastic to thin sheeting.)

Any fleece that you can't get to absorb urine would really be a pain as bedding, because the entire reason that fleece for bedding works is because of the unique "wicking" action that no other fabric can provide. By placing terry cloth towels or other absorbant material under the fleece you are creating a 'System' that works together to provide a safe, inexpensive and unique bedding solution. The thinner and cheaper the fleece, the greater chance that it's going to allow the urine to run straight through it.

What you are going to need to come up with is a 2 or 3 layer system. The top layer of fleece drains the urine and stays dry to the touch, the second layer PULLS or SUCKS the urine from the upper layer and the third layer allows the urine to try quickly. Your top layer of fleece needs to smooth so that hay, hair and poop are easily vacuumed and/or shaken out one or two times a day depending on your cage size and amount of pigs.

The most popular by far it fleece, towels, newspaper. Myself, I found that towels seemed to grab odor faster, so I started putting the quilt batting in between the fleece and towels.

Whatever your system, it needs to be something that is easy to maintain with your cage. That is why I was determined to make sure my fleece was attached to the floor of the cage. Doing so allows me to run the special piggie wet dry vacuum over the whole thing and it sucks up hair, hay and poops quickly. With my gigantoid -mega -wide two story cage I just couldn't handle messing with a loose blanket. At one point I was getting lazy and not attaching it to the coroplast floor bottom. The time and energy to maintain it on a daily basis sucked out about 40 minutes every night instead of 5. In addition, my fleece got a horrible build-up of hair inside and washing it in the washer and dryer didn't help much. I had hair getting all over the place. I didn't like having hair all over my apartment.

My new cage quilt is pretty exciting. I hope it ends up working as a solid permanent solution.