Investigatory project on Guinea pigs...

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Skelly

Skelly

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Hi everyone,

So I do a level 3 extended diploma in animal managament, and in one of my subjects I have been given the task of doing an investigatory project on the subject of my choosing, so obviously GUINEA PIGS! :))

I'm planning on doing it about cage sizes and enrichments:
How effective certain types of enrichments are if at all?
What enrichments are meant to represent or promote, such as natural behaviours etc.
Cage sizes and their effect on guinea pigs.

I hate all these teeny cages and ridiculous enrichments so would love to find out which are most effective, so this is where you lovely guinea pig slaves come in!


I need you all to list what enrichments you have in the cage, cage sizes and how many guinea pigs are in there, how the guinea pigs use the enrichments, if at all? And what behaviours the guinea igs exhibit when they have the enrichments?


Thank you so much everyone! x>>

Jess, Daisy and Minnow

xxxxxxx
 
I have five piggies in a six by three c&c cage. I do not know what you mean by enrichments though. Maybe you mean ramps. They do not have any but I am thinking of creating an upper floor.
 
hello, do you mean objects put in the cage they can play with/ explore? if yes, we have a 7ft x 3ft c& c cage with three boars in it, and we have paper bags filled with hay, and a wicker hanging basket clipped on its side to the top of the cage, we put hay in this and they love to sleep in this.
 
Sorry! enrichments is just a term for any toys/cage accessories/ treats :))
Thanks for the info so far, its really going to help.
x
 
Hi there! I have one guinea-pig in a 4x2ft store bought cage. There is a tunnel (which she races through when doing 'laps' in her cage) and wicker hidey basket all the time, and I swap around her other toys such as cardboard tube filled with hay (which she takes to bed to snuggle up against), a 'ball' with holes that I put food in to find and various treats hidden amoung the hay which she loves to find.
 
Hi
I have 2 girls in a homemade converted solid pine bookcase - 5 1/2 ft long by 2 1/2 ft wide - it has one end covered in hay for them to bury in about 1ft of the 5 1/2 ft - pigloos - long running tunnels toilet rolls , boxes - they are bedded on vet bed.
 
I have 4 pigs living as two pairs in a 2 x 4 shop cage. They have 2 huge wooden houses in each cage (due to a shooing error on my part) and chubes. Theylovee climbing on the houses and running through the chubes.
 
I can't remember the measurements of my cage sorry, but inside it they have two cardboard tunnels that they like to push around and cardboard rolls from selotape, they pick them up and toss them around.

I have two boys, they constantly move the tunnels and throw the cardboard rolls around. I also have a metal ball for food which hangs from the top of the cage I put the food that they tend to scoff down first in the ball. :)
 
Hi! I myself did the level 3 extended in animal management! Brilliant course I loved it :)

I'm not to sure how big my cage is but its home made, using caging (from a commercial cage) and a wooden base, which we lino'd to make it easier to clean. My 3 girls are kept on newspaper and two fleece blankets with lots and lots of hay! I spot clean daily and do a full disinfectant clean weekly.

Enrichment wise I find the cheaper the better, paper bags / cardboard boxes / balled up tissue (sometimes with a bit of veg hidden inside) ... perfect example of how the "I cant afford to give my pets enrichment" dosn't ring true. My girls also have a cosy cup and a tent with a fleece bottom, and an "edible" tunnel.

The best quality enrichment is hay, as abnormal behaviours such as bar chewing tend to be displacement activities, in that guinea pigs need to be able to constantly chew, so generally all enrichment needs to be aimed towards that and the fact that as they are a prey species they need to be able to hide.

... having said that I have noticed that one of my girls Sophie likes to pick things up with her mouth and throw it around!

It would be really interesting to try and see how many people really know anything about guinea pig care, my undergraduate dissertation was on a similar subject but related to rabbits ... turns out very few people know anything ... because all the info out there is jumbled!

Anyway ... hope that helps? :)
 
How long do you have to do this? I'm going to be moving most of my pigs into bigger accommodation very soon and adding more things to do, so hopefully I can give you a before and after if that would help?

Here's what I currently have:
  • 9 sows in a 24sq ft hutch. It's now getting a bit cramped as the babies of the group are no longer teeny babies which is why they are being moved out this weekend into a shed.
  • 2 pairs in 4ft hutches (will be moving to 5 ft hutches)
  • 1 pair in a 5ft hutch (won't change)
  • 2 mums/2 babies in a 5x2 hutch (will be moving into the shed with the 9 girls now the youngest baby is about 10 weeks old and able to defend herself if someone takes a disliking to her)
  • 1 single in a 3ft hutch (won't be much help here as he's only going to be in it for 3 nights before moving in with the ladies).

With any luck come Sunday I will have:
13 (eventually 15) sows and a neutered boar in a 10x6 shed, free range. About 42-48sq feet depending on how much floor space I use for storing their food will be theirs to roam around. More space = more toys and enrichment than they've been able to have so far. We will have platforms with ramps up to give even more space for them to explore and we're making them so that they can be interchanged and moved round to provide variety. Bedding boxes as well as all the usual toys (chubes, bendy bridges, paper bags, cardboard boxes, hay racks and hay trays, whatever I can find!).

Plus two pairs in 5x2 hutches. They will get new chubes, pigloos and fleecey hammocks/tents put in when I get some. I have noticed with my pairs that the extra space has been fantastic for them; they're far more animated than they were in crappy 4ft (probably not even that) pet shop hutches and appear happier and healthier in themselves.

Will definitely let you know what effect the shed has on my herd though! I'm hoping that they'll love it! Far more space than they have now with more things for them to do and explore. Watch this space! (well... another post!)
 
What a great course to do.
I have six pigs in a three storey C&C based cage with a wooden structure. On the ground floor is two 5 x 2 C&Cs next to each other, one with a pair of unneutered males Spike and Bob and a single unneutered male Gerry next door. On the middle floor is a 4 x 2 with neutered boar Hector and his wife Matilda and on the top floor is unneutered boar George (Gerry's brother - they fell out rolleyes )
The have cardboard boxes - up turned fruit boxes so they have a dark space to crawl under and sleep, cardboard wine boxes with the ends cut out to make tunnels, fabric tunnels and cozies, cardboard tubes, some covered in hay and wooden arches made of little branches, I can't think what they're called!
They love nothing more than a sheet of newspaper to play with cause they can chuck it about, eat it, sit on it, hide under it! They also like cardboard loo roll tubes stuffed with hay but most of all a big pile of hay to play in.
Basically anything they can hide under and chuck about! :))
 
i have 3 pigs in a 2x4 cage (c&c). they have 3 pigloos, 2 bowls of food, one water bottle, a snuggy bed, a chewy branch on the bars, and a hay wheel. they love their chewy branch and hay wheel, and of course they sunggy bed :)
 
Brilliant stuff everyone :))
Thanks so much for the information, noting it down now.

Hi ghostbusterbunny, that would be brilliant if you could let me kmow how they react to their new home, thanks. I'm doing it for a full year, so plenty of time :)) Hope all goes well with moving your lot! x

hello rodentlady! thats what I'm called at college :)) absolutly love rodents. I agree its a fantastic course, I'm on my second year and loving it! Thanks for the info! x
 
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