Worst. Cage biter. Ever.

Wetherill

Wetherill

Junior Guinea Pig
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My Bercy(~9mo) chews on the bars of his cage like it is his life’s purpose. When I say 24/7, I mean 24/7. I have no idea what to do. He has a consistent feeding schedule every day, gets plenty of his vegetables, a serving of pellets, hay at all times, filtered water at all times. He has 2 brothers, I have also tried to separate him from them to see if that’s his problem and nothing changes. He has so many toys/wood chews, I’ve been buying him more weekly just to see if anything diverts his attention, but nothing. I even took him in for a check up, and he’s healthy. Eats and drinks, plays, squeaks, but just wants to chew. His cage is now 26 sq. feet, so I doubt space is an issue. He gets out for floor time plenty. Since there is only one section of his cage with bars, sometimes I wrap them tightly in a clean fitted sheet, and he will try destroying the sheet to get to them, forcing me to remove it. I haven’t slept all night in WEEKS. I try giving his nose a quick poke when he does it because it usually annoys him to the point that he’ll stop for 5 seconds max. I feel like I’ve tried everything. I might be forced to change the bars out for something else, but I don’t know what that would be, and god forbid he tried to chew that too. I am at a complete loss. He’s doing it right now…
 
Oh boy, I know what you're going through. I have three pigs and one absolutely loves chewing the cage bars. I also have a giant cage so it isn't a size issue either. The only thing that helped me is giving him toys he can rip apart. Oxbow sells some good ones that are made of paper and have cardboard inside which he loves to rip, chew, and throw. Eventually, he has grown out of his cage biting habit and goes crazy about destroying toys (hanging bird toys are also great if they only have natural materials.) Now he only bites when I come close to the cage as a way of trying to get my attention and a snack. Try hanging a natural bird toy with parts made of paper on the bars he likes to chew. If that doesn't help I hope he grows out of it like mine did!
 
What kind of toys does he have? Most piggies don't chew wooden toys but prefer things like carrot cottages and hay cubes, which are made from cardboard. Or you could make him hideys out of cardboard boxes as piggies like to spend time widening the entrances.
How much veg and pellets does he have? And does he have plenty of hay in piles on the floor? Most of what they eat should be hay and to get enough they need to spend many hours a day grazing on it.
 
I had a guinea who was a cage biter. We think she was a bit neglected in her previous home and forgot to feed her a couple of times so she learn that cage biting got her food.

When she came to us she unfortunately had that habit so engrained that when she came to us and settled into her routine she would be bar biting as soon as we were preparing her meal. Since we had jobs we couldn't afford the time to teach her otherwise. It would have taken a lot of time in the mornings and a lot of patience that we didn't have to luxury of so she was bar biting for her veggies until she died.

If you can work out why he's doing it. That will help. Is it attention from you? Is it food? Is it just cause it's fun? Then you can work out how to either teach him not too or remove the temptation.
 
Pound Shilling & Pig said:
What kind of toys does he have? Most piggies don't chew wooden toys but prefer things like carrot cottages and hay cubes, which are made from cardboard. Or you could make him hideys out of cardboard boxes as piggies like to spend time widening the entrances.
How much veg and pellets does he have? And does he have plenty of hay in piles on the floor? Most of what they eat should be hay and to get enough they need to spend many hours a day grazing on it.
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He’s basically rotated through almost every material oxbow makes their toys out of. He likes cardboard, but he just likes the bars so much better. 1 cup veg, 1/8 cup pellets, hay piles all day. He likes to play in the hay, too, but always just gets bored and resorts back to the bars🙄
 
I have a duster on an extension and use that if my bar chewer starts, she hears wrappers or me chopping and sets every one else off, all 8 of them. All other times she never bothers with the bars, lemon juice wow bet that makes their eyes water 😂
 
I’ve read on here about putting some kind of plastic on cage to stop them biting bars?
 
We used perspex to cover Reds grids in the end as nothing else stopped him and he wore his teeth down to stubs. Now he is living alone (fell out with cage mate) I've not put it on his new cage, he's not so bad now and only does it when he wants to attract the attention of his neighbours or I'm being too slow with veggies. He taught all my other piggies to do it as well, they only do it at food time though, so not quite so bad.
 
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