Dirty Bowl Help

[A Guinea Pig]

Hello! Does anyone have advice for keeping the guinea pigs' bowls cleaner for longer?

My girls, Ella and Lulu, can keep a bowl clean without hay for days if I leave it out. Sugar and Spice can make a bowl nasty in a matter of hours. I'll refill it fresh at night, and by morning it's bright yellow and filled with hay dust.

Sugar and Spice won't use the water bottle at all, and I'm not sure how to get them to like it.

Thank you

 

[Truffolo]

Hello! Does anyone have advice for keeping the guinea pigs' bowls cleaner for longer?

My girls, Ella and Lulu, can keep a bowl clean without hay for days if I leave it out. Sugar and Spice can make a bowl nasty in a matter of hours. I'll refill it fresh at night, and by morning it's bright yellow and filled with hay dust.

Sugar and Spice won't use the water bottle at all, and I'm not sure how to get them to like it.

Thank you

I don't think there is a way, other than cleaning when needed. It is vital they have fresh water so we just have to keep checking and cleaning. Piggies are messy beasties. I use bottles and my pigs get fresh water twice daily. I would never want it any other way. They have a more sensitive sense of smell than we do and old water must be very unpleasant for them.

 

[Roselina]

I use water bottles with filtered water
I would use a few bowls that can be replaced regularly and then cleaned together

 

[Piggies&buns]

There isn’t a way unfortunately. You just have to clean and refill as often as necessary, and have multiple bowls in the hope that if one is messy another will still be fresh…for at least a little longer!

Piggies learn how to drink from a bottle as babies by watching older/other piggies do it, so if they have never learnt at that point, then they may not learn once they are older and don’t necessarily have anyone else to watch.

 

[Merab]

I had a piggy who was incapable of drinking from a water bottle without emptying it all over the cage.
I had to use a bowl which meant cleaning it several times a day !

 

[A Guinea Pig]

Thank you all for the advice, it's much appreciated; I’ve continued to clean their bowls more often. Would it be worth a shot to put their water bottles side by side on the shared grids? Maybe then Sugar and Spice would learn that way. They still refuse to use it.

I would like to know, though, what they are doing to get the bowls so dirty so quickly. Are they holding hay in their mouths and then drinking water to help them swallow it better or just peeing in it?

I replaced the bowls and then brought Ella upstairs to hold for maybe 20 minutes this morning. I've attached a photo of it. This is how dirty the bowl was when I came to put her back. I'm worried Sugar and Spice might get sick just because it's too impractical for me to clean these every half hour; I still have to go to work on weekdays. They have four bowls spread out in the cage, and they all end up like this so quickly. I don't mind them using bowls, but the speed at which they get dirty is concerning, and they would benefit much more from using the bottle.

 

[heart<3]

You could try rubbing a fruit on the nozzle of the bottle to see if it intrigues them. Or try picking them up and placing on your lap sometime, and pressing the nozzle to their teeth. Also, potentially, if there’s no alternatives they may drink from it.

I think that’s what I did. I may have tried tying a sprig of cilantro on the spout too.

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

I would like to know, though, what they are doing to get the bowls so dirty so quickly. Are they holding hay in their mouths and then drinking water to help them swallow it better or just peeing in it?

I doubt a guinea would drink water to help them swallow hay, I don't think they'd come up with that kind of 'logic'. The yellow colour is very strange. In the past my guineas did use bowls and they did get dirty quite quickly but mostly with bits of hay and sometimes the odd shaving floating around, which didn't colour the water. Or of course bits of poo sometimes got in there and started disintegrating, but the water would turn rather an earthy colour instead of bright yellow.

What I eventually did was raise their water bowl above all the shavings etc by making a short wide tower of small flat paving stones I found in the yard. The guineas could sit by their bowls and drink but when they raced around doing zoomies, the shavings, poo etc didn't land in the bowls so often. If your guineas are peeing in their water bowls, having them raised on a pedestal so to speak might hinder using bowl as toilet?

 

[Mrs Tiggy Winkle]

Re. the yellow - is there possibly any herb in the hay mix that could be exuding this colour? It almost looks like a yellow dye. Though of course there isn't any plant matter in the bowl you photographed, so probably not. Very strange.

 

[A Guinea Pig]

You could try rubbing a fruit on the nozzle of the bottle to see if it intrigues them. Or try picking them up and placing on your lap sometime, and pressing the nozzle to their teeth. Also, potentially, if there’s no alternatives they may drink from it.

I think that’s what I did. I may have tried tying a sprig of cilantro on the spout too.

I’ll definitely be trying the fruit on the nozzles and maybe just tapping their mouths on the water from it. Will keep you updated.

I doubt a guinea would drink water to help them swallow hay, I don't think they'd come up with that kind of 'logic'. The yellow colour is very strange. In the past my guineas did use bowls and they did get dirty quite quickly but mostly with bits of hay and sometimes the odd shaving floating around, which didn't colour the water. Or of course bits of poo sometimes got in there and started disintegrating, but the water would turn rather an earthy colour instead of bright yellow.

What I eventually did was raise their water bowl above all the shavings etc by making a short wide tower of small flat paving stones I found in the yard. The guineas could sit by their bowls and drink but when they raced around doing zoomies, the shavings, poo etc didn't land in the bowls so often. If your guineas are peeing in their water bowls, having them raised on a pedestal so to speak might hinder using bowl as toilet?

I've attached another photo of the bowls below (about an hour since cleaned), it's so strange to me how quickly it gets dirty. I'm going to bend a grid or two to create a shelf for the bowls then attach the shelf a bit off the ground to the other grids with some zip ties, maybe that will work to keep their water cleaner.

Re. the yellow - is there possibly any herb in the hay mix that could be exuding this colour? It almost looks like a yellow dye. Though of course there isn't any plant matter in the bowl you photographed, so probably not. Very strange.

No herb mix, they have orchard hay in their cage, pellets on occasion, and their veggies haven't been bright yellow or orange for a couple of weeks. Their urine isn't that color either when dried. It doesn't oxidize to that extent on the white coroplast they have. There is a bit of dust in the bowls though, it's this hay gunk powder that sits at the bottom, that's why I was wondering if they use the water to eat the hay better. Maybe it's just in their mouth and comes out when they drink. Also to note, it's not the poop in the bowl that causes the color, the water gets bright yellow regardless of whether it's there or not.

Thank you to everyone who is helping me figure this out!

 

[A Guinea Pig]

Hi all, quick update! Sugar and Spice have started using the water bottle, just a little, and I'm so glad they've realized it works! The bowls have stayed the same with yellowness but fewer hay bits since it's raised now.

 

[Roselina]

Hi all, quick update! Sugar and Spice have started using the water bottle, just a little, and I'm so glad they've realized it works! The bowls have stayed the same with yellowness but fewer hay bits since it's raised now.

Hooray
Someone on here mentioned rubbing the spout with cucumber ….

 

[A Guinea Pig]

I've completely switched Sugar and Spice to water bottles now, like my other girls, Ella and Lulu. I saw both of them use the water bottle multiple times before switching completely two days ago. They are doing great with it, and I do plan on keeping it this way since the bowls were just a headache with them!