My guinea pigs keep urinating in their hay.

[Levente3900]

I know it sound strange but we just got, well, more like built a new cage for our 2 female piggies, they like it a lot but, the place where we put the hay is also the place our pigs decided to urinate and it smells very bad and I'm afraid they might get sick if they eat from it altough after they peed there once they will stop eating from it. Its very annoying and I'm kind of worried for them. Does anyone have any bit of advice that could help? Because we might have to reorganise the whole cage if they don't stop it.

 

[fluffysal]

You can't stop it. Hay is where they eat, pee, poo, sleep and play. Most people (including me) take out the mucky hay twice a day and give them a top up of fresh. Hay is enrichment as well as food. Anyway, welcome to the forum! Do you have pictures of the girls, we love drooling over other peoples piggies

 

[Levente3900]

If this post is in the wrong category I'm sorry I just didn't know where to put it since its so specific

 

[Levente3900]

You can't stop it. Hay is where they eat, pee, poo, sleep and play. Most people (including me) take out the mucky hay twice a day and give them a top up of fresh. Hay is enrichment as well as food. Anyway, welcome to the forum! Do you have pictures of the girls, we love drooling over other peoples piggies

Good to know that this is normal, I'll change the hay more often then!

 

[Piggies&buns]

Yes it’s totally normal and what they do. Piggies will generally toilet where they eat. You can’t stop it and it won’t hurt them.
All you need to do is replace the hay every day.

My four are fully bedded on hay. They play in it, eat in it, sleep in it. I throw away the wet hay twice a day and replace it with fresh

 

[fluffysal]

Apologies, I saw new born pup under your name assumed you were new! Still want to see your piggies though

 

[Betsy]

Don't worry if they eat the hay that has wee on it. It clearly tastes better with a bit of "seasoning"!

 

[Levente3900]

You can't stop it. Hay is where they eat, pee, poo, sleep and play. Most people (including me) take out the mucky hay twice a day and give them a top up of fresh. Hay is enrichment as well as food. Anyway, welcome to the forum! Do you have pictures of the girls, we love drooling over other peoples piggies

Here is a picture I took during floor time, is she fat?

 

[Piggies&buns]

Here is a picture I took during floor time, is she fat?

The routine weekly weight checks tell you whether she is eating enough hay but it doesn’t say whether she is a good size for herself. To check that, you need to check her heft.

The guide below explains more.

Weight - Monitoring and Management

 

[Levente3900]

The routine weekly weight checks tell you whether she is eating enough hay but it doesn’t say whether she is a good size for herself. To check that, you need to check her heft.

The guide below explains more.

Weight - Monitoring and Management

Thanks, I really like this forum because everyone is kind and helpful! My other piggy is scared of my phone, everytime I try to take a picture she runs away thats why I can't take a good picture of her, anyways thanks for sending that guide I'll definently check it out later!

Note: managed to take a good picture from far away

 

[eileen]

Beautiful piggie,looks a nice size to me.

 

[harmonies]

I realized yes I have a pig sty also pee poop cleaning hay stuff but i love them I had researched before my kids talked me into getting a pair that were just born at my neighborhood pet store 7 months ago in a nutshell 2 ended up to be 4 its not ok but ok theyre part our family mom and daughter brownie and sot are almost twinning and dad and son cloudy and marble

 

[Merab]

I often just check to see which hay pile is moving so I know where the piggies are.
Both of mine love hiding the hay and munching their way out.

 

[LunaPig72]

Mine do this too. They get fresh hay daily and I put timothy or excel feeding hay at the bottom of the tray, with meadow hay on top, to encourage them to forage. But they sleep, wee and poo it in all the time. On the plus side, this means that far less wee and poo ends up on their fleece!

For odour control, I've recently started using wood pellet cat litter under the hay on my pigs' hay trays, having read a recommendation on here, and it has been absolutely brilliant - no urine smell at all, the pellets just go soft once wet and then just get scooped into my garden waste bin at clean out time. Wish I'd discovered these years sgo!