Cleaning cage

[Sxophiee]

Hi, I didn’t know which forum section to put this in but anyways, I got two guinea pigs 3 days ago and I’m fully cleaning their cage this Sunday like washing the fleece and everything.
Will this stress them out too much? I feel like me and the pigs are getting along so well already...or they really like the food I bring for them.

 

[Betsy]

You need to clean them out so pick them up in a fleece hidey (the least stressful way to pick them up) and place them somewhere safe while you clean them out.

 

[PigglePuggle]

Check out the piggy whispering guides and picking-up-and-weighing guides on the forum (which I cant post links to from my phone but hopefully someone else might!).
But cage cleans are something they need to learn happens sometimes... if you reward them with veg and talk them through the whole process in an idiotic sing-song voice like off a kids tv show they will soon understand you are a well-meaning idiot not a predator my lot really like a silly song about what I'm doing (I have a song I made up just about scooping piggy poops! It sort of goes to the tune of "Penny Lane" like "piggy poooooops are in your cage, and on my flooooor!").

 

[Merab]

I let mine out to roam whilst the cage is cleaned.
They have a fluffy bed with some veggies on, a box or a bag with hay, their wooden hideys and sometimes one of the hay tunnels scattered around the hall to keep them occupied while I clean.
This doesn’t stop them coming to look and check up on me or try to get back in the cage.
Yours will get used to it too.
I’m glad you’re building such a good relationship with them

 

[PigglePuggle]

We have a Bunny Business playpen the piggies go in for a few hours every clean out day, with different houses and hidey tunnels and cardboard boxes they dont get in their main cage... plus a huge pile of hay and some hidden veggies!

 

[Reenie]

I always leave something in the cage and change it later, so that the cage still smells right to them (usually just their hay tray or litter box)

 

[Skullblits]

I either put them in there playpen. Or do one half. Then move there houses to the clean half and do that half.

 

[Piggies&buns]

My two live in a two storey hutch with a permament playpen attached in my shed. I just leave them in the hutch when I do a full clean out. It’s something they need to get used to. When mine were first new, I just did it all very very slowly, no sudden movements, talked to them the whole time etc. Now, clean out time is a time my dominant pig, Dexter, enjoys! He runs around playing in the old hay as I am taking it out and eating the new as fast as I’m putting it back in! The other one, Popcorn, tends to just sit in a hidey in the playpen until I stop ruining his bed!