Smart Mommy Pet Stuff

Posts Tagged ‘gunea pig’

Guinea pigs are funny little rodents.  They are a lot like little mini cows, except they’re rodents.  They are herd animals, they eat a lot of hay, and they are strictly vegetarian.  Their main protective instinct is to run and hide.

Guinea pigs are pretty big rodents, so they do need space to move around.  They are not climbers like rats and hamsters, so they need flat exercise area rather than vertical climbing space.  They can even have an open top to the cage because they can’t climb the sides.  Their bodies are too big for their tiny little legs.  Their bodies are not flexible either so they don’t run on the little rodent treadmills, and they don’t use the balls.

I made our guinea pig cage out of Cubes and coroplast.  I also made a fully enclosed 2 story one for them outside so that the guinea pigs could safely spend time outside when the weather is nice.  I figured the more time they spent in different places, the less poop there would be in one place.

The recommended size of a cage is 7.5 square feet for one guinea pig, 10.5 square feet for two pigs, and 13 square feet for three guinea pigs.  This gives average dimensions of a cage as 30” x 36” for one pig, 30”x 50” for two pigs, and 30” x 62” for three pigs.

Our cage is 4 cubes long and 2 cubes wide with a ramp up to kitchen/hay food area that is 1 cube by 2 cubes.  Each cube is around 14 inches, so ours is 28” x 56” on the main level.

People are amazed at how big our cage is, but it does give them room to run around, and it doesn’t get as messy as fast when they have more space.  It would be really hard to clean the cage if we used the typical rodent bedding, but we use a  combination of bedding which makes it easier to clean.  It is still work though.  We use waterproof mattress pad, towel and fleece everywhere, with extra removable coroplast boxes in the kitchen, under one of the hideys, and in a back corner.  The removable boxes have aspen bedding and carefresh together.  It is easy to pull out those boxes and dump them and refill them.  The fleece and towels are easy to pull up and throw in the wash with vinegar for sanitizing.  I have an extra set of the fleece and towels so we can wash one set while we put clean ones in the cage.

If I hadn’t made our own guinea pig cage, there is one on Amazon that is close to these cages.  It is Midwest Interactive Guinea Habitat Plus.  It is close to a cubes and coroplast cage, and you can add onto it.  I would have totally gone this route if it had been in existence when we got our guinea pigs.

You can click here to read my original post when we got the guinea pigs.