Need tips for my pigs’ cage flooring
I recently adopted two sibling boy guinea pigs as family pets, mostly for my 3yo twin boys (obviously they have no responsibility for them yet). I have never owned a guinea pig or really any rodent besides a hamster in 3rd grade.
Their current setup involves a shredded filler over the whole floor and I feel like it’s not practical in terms of cleaning up poop (wow the amount of poop) and cost-wise. Additionally, they like to run laps and inadvertently throw the filler paper and poop in a perimeter outside of their cage.
I tried changing the filler to shredded softwood instead of paper but I feel that made the problem worse. Should I use a different type of flooring? Something I don’t have to replace every week entirely? I did get some fake grass squares but they seem to want to eat it so I’m scared to leave that in there with them. Also — apologies if this is a dumb question— if I put the paper filler in a small contained area of the cage, will they try to mostly poop there?
- picture is from the day they first came home, just to reference the type of cage they have. I promise they have many more toys and tunnels and hay/water now.
I recently adopted two sibling boy guinea pigs as family pets, mostly for my 3yo twin boys (obviously they have no responsibility for them yet). I have never owned a guinea pig or really any rodent besides a hamster in 3rd grade.
Their current setup involves a shredded filler over the whole floor and I feel like it’s not practical in terms of cleaning up poop (wow the amount of poop) and cost-wise. Additionally, they like to run laps and inadvertently throw the filler paper and poop in a perimeter outside of their cage.
I tried changing the filler to shredded softwood instead of paper but I feel that made the problem worse. Should I use a different type of flooring? Something I don’t have to replace every week entirely? I did get some fake grass squares but they seem to want to eat it so I’m scared to leave that in there with them. Also — apologies if this is a dumb question— if I put the paper filler in a small contained area of the cage, will they try to mostly poop there?
- picture is from the day they first came home, just to reference the type of cage they have. I promise they have many more toys and tunnels and hay/water now.