Advice for Guinea Pig Floor

[angrykebler4]

Hi!
We recently moved into a new house and decided to adopt a pair of sows and set them up in the spare bedroom. I've always hated how tiny the cages that I can get at the store are, so we're giving most of the room over to them. We gated off the door so that we can safely come in and out and threw down a tarp to protect the carpet, then set up two cages with ramps and open doors inside. Then we scattered boxes, toys, old rags, ect. all over the tarp for them to play with/hide under. Despite all the other things to distract them, one of my pigs is obsessed with chewing through the tarp and crawling underneath it. I keep covering up the holes, but she just starts new ones. I'm thinking about laying down some plywood to protect the floor, but I'd want to cover it with something that'd be easier on their feet. Any suggestions for something she won't chew through immediately? I don't want to cover the entire room in bedding.

 

[lilyandluna]

Fleece blankets with a puppy pad in between!
You can make them or buy them. Most are so thick I don’t think any Guinea Pig could get through them.
I wash mine once a week and the cage smells great all week. I just sweep poop once a day

 

[MimiCreamie18]

Fleece blankets with a puppy pad in between!
You can make them or buy them. Most are so thick I don’t think any Guinea Pig could get through them.
I wash mine once a week and the cage smells great all week. I just sweep poop once a day

I agree

 

[Piggies&buns]

They need something soft to walk on but it also would need to be absorbent - fleece is a great idea but it does need something absorbent underneath it for the pee the wick through the fleece to such as the puppy pads. They will need a bedding of some sort everywhere they have access to.

Commercial cages can be small, but c&c cages aren’t - they can be configured to whatever shape and size you require (2 piggies requiring a cage measuring 2 grids x 4 grids but anything you can give them bigger than that is fantastic) - so they are a great way of giving them much more space than a commercial cage can offer but still being a manageable and contained area to take care of and cover with bedding. You can still let them have playtime/ floor time by opening one of the grids or lifting the piggies out for their exercise time

 

[angrykebler4]

Thanks guys! Any thoughts on how to secure them without making them hard to remove and clean? I was thinking about sewing velcro strips to the undersides, but anything less labor intensive you can think of would be appreciated.

 

[Piggies&buns]

Thanks guys! Any thoughts on how to secure them without making them hard to remove and clean? I was thinking about sewing velcro strips to the undersides, but anything less labor intensive you can think of would be appreciated.

Perhaps if you’ve got wooden or heavy hidey houses etc on the fleece and towards the edges will be enough to weigh it down and stop them getting underneath. I have some of my boys items on the edges and in the middle and they don’t try to get underneath the fleece etc but mine aren’t terribly burrow-y piggies though

 

[Siikibam]

You could get some c&c grids and clip the fleece to that.my boars don’t burrow, but the girls do. So with them I clip the fleece to the cage grids. Otherwise perhaps place something heavy along the edges that they can’t move