Making an indoor run

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Marnes

Junior Guinea Pig
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My 2 new boys live in a 120 cage - which I now know is really too small! Inexperience. I plan to build a larger indoor run for them and have looked at some of the fab photos and threads on here for ideas. I just have a couple of quick questions.

Firstly, what should I use on the base? I see some people use fleece or blankets, others use newspaper. I use sawdust in my cage. If I were to use blankets etc is this not very messy and hard to clean? My two poop everywhere!

Secondly, how long should I keep them in the run for? Can I leave them in the run all day while I'm at work?
 
As it’s indoor, I’d use fleece.
Mine are out in the shed and have their hutch standing in the middle of their run in the shed. They have a mix of beddings. Fleece in the run and finacard and hay in the hutch. The hay does stick to the fleece and can clog washing machines but there are ways to minimise this - washing fleece in horse rug bags etc. I just give mine a good shake, a brush a soak outside in a disinfectant bucket and then in the washing machine. A lot of the hay has come off by the time it goes in my machine.
Fleece needs to be spot cleaned everyday. My two boys poop everywhere and it spot clean twice, sometimes three times a day.
As long as the run is secure and safe, then I’d leave them in the run all day.
 
Marnes said:
My 2 new boys live in a 120 cage - which I now know is really too small! Inexperience. I plan to build a larger indoor run for them and have looked at some of the fab photos and threads on here for ideas. I just have a couple of quick questions.

Firstly, what should I use on the base? I see some people use fleece or blankets, others use newspaper. I use sawdust in my cage. If I were to use blankets etc is this not very messy and hard to clean? My two poop everywhere!

Secondly, how long should I keep them in the run for? Can I leave them in the run all day while I'm at work?
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I'm a fleece convert. Before my current pigs, I was a religious shavings user but they lived outside. My current pigs live inside with me in my open plan flag and the chips just went everywhere so I switched to fleece which is more work day to day and can mean the cage smells if the herd has had a particularly heavy pooping day. But this is very occasionally and I use dettol fabric disinfectant when I wash them which I think helps keep the smell down. When I say smell, they have nothing on birds or a cat litter tray and the lack of stray shavings around the place is so much better for my sanity. They got literally everywhere.

I don't like having fleece under their hay racks though because it's difficult to get it off before going in the washing machine. (I can't give it a good shake outside as my under neighbours are quite unforgiving and they have complained about stray poops falling onto their balcony. I can't imagine it was many but they did complain!) So as a compromise I have heavy substrate under their hay loft like back2nature or carefresh. It's expensive but it doesn't get kicked our of their cage so easily and it's only a small part of their cage.
 
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