What size cage does your guinea pig have?
By Pigglies
@Pigglies (9329)
United States
February 6, 2007 9:25pm CST
Why did you choose that size? Do you feel like your guinea pigs have enough room to run around and get exercise? Did you buy your cage or make it yourself?
I use the cages like the ones at www.guineapigcages.com built of cubes and coroplast. I generally make them 7.5 square feet or 9 square feet. I've rarely added lofts, but would like to more often. I think this gives guinea pigs a nice amount of space to run around, jump in the air, and get some exercise. I wouldn't use anything smaller than 7.5 square feet for any length of time.
In the past before I knew about these cages, I had to buy two expensive pet store cages because nothing made seemed to be big enough.
My cages fit nicely in the space between the living room and the family room, a high traffic area. This ensures that the pigs see us frequently.
I really like this setup.
1 person likes this
4 responses
@freak369 (5112)
• United States
7 Feb 07
Mine are all free runners. They have a small pet carrier (like the cat sized one) that I use when I need to take them to the vet but 99% of the time, they are allowed to roam free. As soon as a new one arrives, the older ones show them the ropes. There is a large plastic swimming pool that has some bedding, hay and food bowls in it and they all go in kitty litter pans. Sure there is the odd accident and one of them likes to poop in the corner. Even so, it isn't messy and the Dirt Devil takes care of it. They sleep in pet igloos (we call them pigloos).
I've never had a problem with them crewing cords or peeing anywhere and they seem to really like the freedom of being able to jump in and out of the pool. Having free running piggies takes a LOT of time to train everyone invovled. If you start with two of them and sort of show them what the deal is, where to pee, poop, their food etc, it helps in a big way. Surprisingly none of them get under foot or get into things they shouldn't. The biggest accident we had was when one of them chewed all the rubber buttons off the remote when someone left it on the floor.
As far as cages, when I have them outside I have a metal wrap around that I put in the grass. I have to keep it covered so the sun doesn't beat down on them but more importantly, to keep the hawks and crows from making off with them. I had a close call a couple years ago and don't wish to relive that LOL.
1 person likes this
@Pigglies (9329)
• United States
7 Feb 07
That is really cool! I've only seen 2 people before who had guinea pigs free range. Both created big messes. And out of all the piggies I've had, only two (out of nearly 100 or so) were fairly good with their litterbox.
One of my friends had a free range pig that would hop into the refrigerator and wouldn't get out until you gave him a veggie.
Piggies seem to love remote buttons, hehe.
Yeah, we get hawks out here too. But I'm more worried about heat stroke since I'm in Southern CA. So many people have had their pigs die from the heat, even when they're in the shade. Mostly people who either didn't supervise or didn't know enough about pigs to realize the signs of them being hot. Mine don't usually get to go outside, except sometimes I have taken seniors outside to enjoy the grass.
That is really cool though. That'd be kind of fun to have free range piggies. I'd even like to have completely free range rabbits, although, I guess if I had both free range I'd kind of have to section off the house.
@Withoutwings (6992)
• United States
18 May 07
I don't havea guinea pig - but I have a hamster. She has a pretty nice pad. My boyfriend made it. It's really big. It's wide and 3 stories tall with lots of climby things. She loves it. I want her to have a lot of room to run around.
@blackbriar (9075)
• United States
18 Feb 07
When I was in my early 20's, I used to raise/breed guinea pigs and used 2'x2' cages for them, 2 to a cage with free access to run around in a 7' across circle pen. They also had a 15' x 10' covered pen outside in the grass to play in during the day. My piggies loved the setup I created for them for they got a lot of exercise and playtime in with each other. Course, males and females were kept apart and only paired them when I bred which was once a year if not less. Was more a fun hobby than to make money since I really enjoyed them. One of these days I'll have a couple piggies again but will never breed them again. Had a pet shop that bought the babies from me and only me cause they were very tame and friendly and ppl preferred them that way. Think I'll check out the website you provided. Maybe I'll get their next cage(s) from there. Thanks for the site addy. :-)
@Pigglies (9329)
• United States
19 Feb 07
Most breeders give them so much smaller setups, it's really sad. Nice to hear of someone who didn't go with those horrible tiny stacking breeder cages. I'd agree if you're only breeding them once a year, that's definitely not breeding for money. :)
I used to want to breed them, but out here, so many homeless piggies. Plus, now I've seen a lot of the dangers firsthand, so I don't really want to even if there wasn't so many piggies.
You're welcome for the website addy. You can either buy the cages there or build them. I build them myself because I started using their setup before they started selling it. It's nice that they still provide instructions for people who want to build them, even though they also sell them now.
