Fun | ||||||||||||||||||
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 | The single best thing you can do to make a piggy happy is get it a friend. Guinea pigs thrive with company and although you may think they may look happy when you are with them, think about all the time that you're not there - it's much nicer for them not to be sat alone waiting for you. Make sure the pigs are either the same sex, or that one has been desexed. Pigs that won't share their living area with another, still usually like company so a big cage with a partition gives them a chance to interact with another pig without sharing their territory. | |||||||||||||||||
 | Pigs love to play with, and hide in boxes. I make little doorways for them to go in and out of them. I take the bottom out for the ones they have in their living area so they don't get soiled as the piggy will then sit in it. I put towels in the 'piggy ports' I have around the room, so they can have a nice warm cosy rest and some time to themselves! Don't use glossy boxes or ones with lots of colours on. Also, remove all the tape and glue so they can't chew it. They won't last forever so replace them as they get dirty or eaten! Mine also find egg boxes very interesting (but only when they are plain cardboard and uncoloured). | |||||||||||||||||
 | You can get several different designs of pigloo, available from many pet shops. The kind featured in the picture to the left is the bottomless kind which you can just pop in the cage. You can also get pigloos with plastic bases (see Teef in his), but the problem with these is that the pigs tend to wee in them which means they can get very messy very quickly! I tried putting bedding in (also useful as the plastic base isn't so cosy) but they still got grotty quite quickly. I just didn't find they worked well in the cages, so instead I made some little fleece blankets to put inside them and then dotted them around the room as somewhere the pigs could go for 'quiet time' when they were free ranging. They are very popular with my lot when used this way and if anyone does wee in them (which doesn't happen often), the fleece absorbs it. CAUTION! When buying anything made of plastic for your guinea pigs, please make sure the plastic isn't a kind that can be easily chewed, or that will form sharp edges if pieces can be chewed off. This could be fatal to your guinea pig if ingested. Some pigs will sink their teeth in to anything, and if you have a pig with determined incisors, it may be best to stick to cardboard boxes for the sake of its safety. | |||||||||||||||||
 | Get some cardboard tubes (from kitchen roll, wrapping paper etc) and stuff them as full as you can of hay so it is poking out at both ends. Pigs love to eat the hay from them, roll and toss them around - and bop each other on the head with them too! | |||||||||||||||||
 | Pigs love to play in huge mounds of hay - hiding, resting and making tunnels in it given the chance. They will soon eat it, stamp it down or soil it so replace it as much as you can and make sure they always have fresh hay to eat. | |||||||||||||||||
 | My pigs love their twig balls (I get them from Bunny Bazaar or Bunny Mail - both are in the UK, see the main links page for details). You can either put them in the cage as they are, and they will be chewed and rolled and tossed around! Or you can stuff some hay in to the little holes to give them an interesting and fun twist to a hay snack! | |||||||||||||||||
 | You can get these from your pet shop. They are made of hay so completely edible and pigs love to play in them and push them around - nibbling at them all the while. They provide hours of amusement - the only thing is, they don't always last very long!! Make sure you get the larger size for rabbits, chins and piggers. | |||||||||||||||||
 | You can normally get these from a pet shop, but the best thing to do is simply buy some piping from a DIY store - much cheaper! Buy a nice and wide size (often for sewage piping) so there is no chance on earth that your piggy could ever get stuck in it. Place lengths in the cage if it is nice and big, or put pieces around the room when they are having floor time. Some foods come in cardboard tube cartons which are wide enough to play in too, so they can have these when you've finished the nosh. This pic shows an edible 'bunny tube' which I bought from Bunny Bazaar (UK) and the inside diameter of the tube is 6" so it's nice and spacious. | |||||||||||||||||
 | Some piggies really love to play with balls - use ones that don't have a soft or chewable outer layer they can get their teeth in to. Try a couple of golf balls - see if they like to play with them! NEVER use the exercise balls or wheels some pet shops sell for them to roll around in. These are not suitable for a guinea pigs delicate spine and can injure them. Most seem to know this and hate them anyway - clever pigs! | |||||||||||||||||
 | Very important for mental stimulation in addition to physical exercise. See the exercise page for more ideas! | |||||||||||||||||