Piggie Mom
Junior Guinea Pig
Hiya,
As an owner of three one year old boars, two of whom are separated as they don't get along, I have been putting a lot of time into keeping my piggies busy and I thought I'd share my tips on affordable ways to entertain your piggies as sometimes spending a bunch of money on enrichment isn't a necessity. Feel free to add your own tips in the comments as I'm always looking for new ways to activate my piggies brains!
Here's a picture of all my go to enrichments, for these I use toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls which I count as free, the only things I've spent money on that isn't just part of the usual piggie care is juuttilanka (jute twine) and forage. For forage I recommend buying a huge bag when a petstore has a sale as it'll last you quite a while!
The forage and the jute twine
With forage you don't even need to make any craft to entertain your piggies, I typically scatter some around the cage and in the litter box to encourage foraging. This will keep them occupied for about 10-20 min in my experience, but it doesn't require too much brainwork, it works even for lazy piggies who don't like trying to solve difficult puzzles. I'd give its difficulty a 1/3. My piggies absolutely love this so I'll give it 3/3 in enjoyment!
Hanging forage
The first homecrafted enrichment I'll recommend requires jute twine and an egg carton, I've made mine with three pieces which you can put feed in between, but you can add even more! Depending on where you hang them they'll vary in difficulty, but I'd say it doesn't get any more difficult than 2/3 unless you make it completely impossible for them to reach it (which defeats the whole purpose). My piggies like these, but don't go that crazy with them, so enjoyment is about 1,5-2/3 depending on the pig. They also often get bored before they've managed to get out all of the feed, but time-wise these usually keep them occupied for a solid 10 minutes.
Hay tubes
These tubes I've not used that many times yet, but I've found they occupy my piggies for a longer time. I jsut stuff some hay into them and a bit of forage and they they can spend 30+ min pulling out hay to get to the forage. They're really easy for the piggies, only a 1/3 in difficulty, but they seem to enjoy them, so a 2,5/3 in that.
Forage tubes
These are just hay tubes, but with the ends bent so that the forage stays inside. The idea was that the piggies would turn them to get forage, however even if they turned them they didn't realize that that was the reason forage was falling out, so I did have some quite frustrated piggies
I ended up opening one of the flaps to make them easier, that means that with these you can adjust difficulty, if all the flaps are closed it's a 3/3 and with one open it's about a 2/3 which is the level my piggies are (Either their solution to a problem is violence or to push the problem up against a wall 
) These kept the piggies occupied for only 5-10 min without the open flap (as they got rage quit after that), but when I opened the flap they were occupied for another 10-15 minutes (except for Lakrits who threw his forage everywhere and was searching through the whole cage!) Enjoyment at the proper level was a solid 2/3 I'd say.
Treat balls
We'll end this with the piggies favorites! These are just cut pieces of a paper towel roll, with a treat stuffed inside, you can adjust the difficulty by adding more pieces when the pigiges get good at opening these. Out of my piggies Lakrits gets his open in a few seconds if I don't add many extra pieces as he just thrashes around with it until it opens. They don't keep the piggies occupied for a long time, only +/- 5 min, but my piggies love these for some reason, they'll throw them around, push them and dig at them until they open so enjoyment wise they get a 3/3. Difficulty is adjustable but it stays around 1-2/3.
Hopefully this is helpful inspiration to some piggie parents!
As an owner of three one year old boars, two of whom are separated as they don't get along, I have been putting a lot of time into keeping my piggies busy and I thought I'd share my tips on affordable ways to entertain your piggies as sometimes spending a bunch of money on enrichment isn't a necessity. Feel free to add your own tips in the comments as I'm always looking for new ways to activate my piggies brains!
Here's a picture of all my go to enrichments, for these I use toilet paper rolls or paper towel rolls which I count as free, the only things I've spent money on that isn't just part of the usual piggie care is juuttilanka (jute twine) and forage. For forage I recommend buying a huge bag when a petstore has a sale as it'll last you quite a while!
The forage and the jute twine
With forage you don't even need to make any craft to entertain your piggies, I typically scatter some around the cage and in the litter box to encourage foraging. This will keep them occupied for about 10-20 min in my experience, but it doesn't require too much brainwork, it works even for lazy piggies who don't like trying to solve difficult puzzles. I'd give its difficulty a 1/3. My piggies absolutely love this so I'll give it 3/3 in enjoyment!
Hanging forage
The first homecrafted enrichment I'll recommend requires jute twine and an egg carton, I've made mine with three pieces which you can put feed in between, but you can add even more! Depending on where you hang them they'll vary in difficulty, but I'd say it doesn't get any more difficult than 2/3 unless you make it completely impossible for them to reach it (which defeats the whole purpose). My piggies like these, but don't go that crazy with them, so enjoyment is about 1,5-2/3 depending on the pig. They also often get bored before they've managed to get out all of the feed, but time-wise these usually keep them occupied for a solid 10 minutes.
Hay tubes
These tubes I've not used that many times yet, but I've found they occupy my piggies for a longer time. I jsut stuff some hay into them and a bit of forage and they they can spend 30+ min pulling out hay to get to the forage. They're really easy for the piggies, only a 1/3 in difficulty, but they seem to enjoy them, so a 2,5/3 in that.
Forage tubes
These are just hay tubes, but with the ends bent so that the forage stays inside. The idea was that the piggies would turn them to get forage, however even if they turned them they didn't realize that that was the reason forage was falling out, so I did have some quite frustrated piggies
I ended up opening one of the flaps to make them easier, that means that with these you can adjust difficulty, if all the flaps are closed it's a 3/3 and with one open it's about a 2/3 which is the level my piggies are (Either their solution to a problem is violence or to push the problem up against a wall ) These kept the piggies occupied for only 5-10 min without the open flap (as they got rage quit after that), but when I opened the flap they were occupied for another 10-15 minutes (except for Lakrits who threw his forage everywhere and was searching through the whole cage!) Enjoyment at the proper level was a solid 2/3 I'd say.Treat balls
We'll end this with the piggies favorites! These are just cut pieces of a paper towel roll, with a treat stuffed inside, you can adjust the difficulty by adding more pieces when the pigiges get good at opening these. Out of my piggies Lakrits gets his open in a few seconds if I don't add many extra pieces as he just thrashes around with it until it opens. They don't keep the piggies occupied for a long time, only +/- 5 min, but my piggies love these for some reason, they'll throw them around, push them and dig at them until they open so enjoyment wise they get a 3/3. Difficulty is adjustable but it stays around 1-2/3.
Hopefully this is helpful inspiration to some piggie parents!
