indoor run for guinea pigs

[thedevilsavocado]

Hello
We are getting ready to have two guinea pigs and have bought one of those fabric indoor runs for them as well as an indoor cage. What does anyone put in the run to make sure it doesn't end up really smelly? Also do we need anything else in there apart from an igloo, hay, food and water? Any advice very welcome, thanks in advance.

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Hi devil
Is your fabric run for indoor excercise and the cage for sleeping?

(Though the words guinea-pig + excercise doesn't go hand-in-hand )

My boars (3y3 and 9 months) have an indoor night run for winter (and they are manky, manky little toads). It's made up of panels that lock together (so it will fold away, and I can alter the shape) but no base. They have a big folded tarpaulin on the floor, with cardboard on top. But they won't walk on hard surfaces .
We use puppy pee pads + newspaper. (Make sure they can't eat the pee pads) . Then it can get rolled up and binned. They've got bath mats and petbeds (that go in the wash).
A trug of hay (to stop it travelling everywhere).
Or you can get Hay Cookies (solid discs of hay) which are less messy in their run. (Then loose hay in their cage? )

Then we have boxes and tunnels. They love tunnels .
You can make a Guinea Village for them. Boxes with no tape or staples. Cut two doors.
The boxes can get thrown out (the tunnels we have are plastic or cardboard ones)

If you put newspaper in the boxes, they might pee in there.
Probably not.


Guinea-pigs don't really smell, TBH. They are quite inoffensive little creatures , even our two boars aren't really whiffy.
It's the hay that smells.

[thedevilsavocado]

Thanks 70 that is really helpful. I was worried about smelly wee, smelly hay I think I can cope with! yes the cage is for night time it's not as big as the run but more secure. I have got a card tube, didn't occur to me to make one!!
Thanks again will let you know how we get on.

[magentastardust]

Mine have a cage indoors but have a pop up child's ball pool (minus the balls!) for a run. I put fleece or towels in the bottom and they have a few cardboard tunnels and a little house and some chew type toys in it. They run around and popcorn and chase each other like mad in it. I keep the Hay in their cage so that the run keeps relatively un messy and easy to clean up after they have been in.

[thedevilsavocado]

Thanks magenta. We have had our gps for a week now and they are lovely! They seem quite well settled and are very chatty. I am wasting way too much time talking to them! They haven't been in the run yet as I thought they should get used to their new home first but we are going to introduce them to it today. Will they be happy running around on towels or do they need fleece on top?

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

Hi devil you can use the fleeces for them to snuggle in and the towels (or newspaper) underneath to absorb.
Pee 'wicks' through fleece so it stays fairly dry.

(I put a puppy pad and newspaper under the hay in my boars indoor trug. It is saturated after one day. They have bladders like a camel )

There's no such thing as wasting time talking to guinea-pigs BTW, they get used to your voice the more you chat to them. And if you whistle, they stop and glare at you

Oh, my boars think I shouldn't waste time chatting if it hinders my journey to the fridge .

[thedevilsavocado]

Thanks 70. I can't believe how much hay they eat! One of ours starts squeaking as soon as she hears the hay bag being opened. I am going to get some hay cookies, at the moment there is hay everywhere!

[FernieB]

They love hay cookies but will ask for hay as well. They can't burrow into a cookie although they do like to give it a good try

[thedevilsavocado]

I thought I would have hay in the cage and cookies in the run. Mind you, not much burrowing going on here , that would mean stopping eating for a few minutes!