Hay...

[PennyV]

My son and I are planning to revamp our piggies' home and I have a question about hay...

At first I put it in an outside the cage manger and they pulled it in. They peeed everywhere.

Then I scattered some on the floor. Ditto for pee.

Then I saw some cat litter trays in the various pics of c&c cages that I've been poring over, so got one, filled it with hay and put it under the water bottle and beside the pellets. They peed in the litter box! They also ate the hay, and lay around in it...

My question is, what should I do about the hay in the new accomodation? I stuff one of their inner tube from a carpet tunnels and they pull that out and eat it, but that's not great for foraging around the floor. I've seen haylofts and hay 'basements'. Would they forage in one or use it as a toilet?

I'm new to guineapigs (worked out this morning that it must be about 6 weeks since DS found them) and am doing lots of research via forums and the wonderful Guinea Pig Magazine. All advice (and photos!) would be most welcome!

 

[Toffeewoffee]

Thing is with piggies they poo and pee where they eat, they are like sausage machines what go's in must come out quickly and as their diet is 80% hay they spend alot of time eating it, so wee and poo whilst doing so. so its to be expected for them to pee on it.

The god thing with the cat litter tray is that as they are sitting in it eating the hay they will wee and poo in there which can just be picked up, emptied, refilled and put back in the cage 2 - 3 times a day if needed, they wont eat the hay they have been laying on and toilet-ing on so it will need to be replaced with fresh.

xx

 

[PennyV]

So a hayloft, with the water bottle above it would be fine? Put wee bits of food and different hay for them to forage and just clean the whole caboodle out every day? That sounds all right! :o) And have the main floor just with their fleece on top of vetbed, as they have atm? (Also tunnels and cosies, of course!)

Thanks, Toffeewoffee!

 

[catherine]

I too experimented with this for ages, and I've only recently found the perfect solution to it!

I bought a gardening potting tray (basically a big tray with a low front) and attached a hay manger to it. Line it with newspaper, and every morning I roll up the newspaper, put it in the bin, wipe with a disinfectant wipe and put a fresh newspaper down.

It's also basically toilet trained the lot of them (90% of the time) |)

See in pic below:

 

[flintstones]

I used a hay tray previously but now they hay all over as I stopped using fleece and Vet Bed due to the smell and washing.