Indoor guinea pigs - what size cage and where do you keep yours?

[IzzyWizzyletsgetbusy]

So, we have two guinea pigs coming to us at the end of March and need to get everything ready.

They will be living indoors - what size cage do we need? I've been looking at 1m and 1.20m; the 1.2m looks huge but I wonder whether it will look more reasonable when they are fully grown (they will only be 6 weeks when they come).

Also, where do you keep your indoor gps? A 1.2m cage could only go in the living room (not sure if it would be too busy for them/too smelly for us!) or in the utility room (which is a bit out of the way) whereas the 1m cage would fit in the kitchen...just wondered what others found worked best?

Obviously they will be let out for a run around every day but I want to get their main living accommodation right!

I bought grids from Costco (not C&C but similar) IIRC they are 14" square.
They have connectors , we use those cable ties as well to secure.
I put a tarpaulin on the floor under the cage then lined the base in cardboard with a slight raised 'lip'.
You can use lino or similar.

It's good to rustle up an emergency quarentine cage if you have a new piggie or an ill piggie.

I've got two boar/sow pairs in two separate 4x2ft indoor hutches. They come out for a play in an indoor run but never together as a foursome (the two boys are brothers who had to be separated due to a major fight).

Ours are currently in the living room of a flat we're renting whilst our home is being renovated - they were next to the kitchen before and will be in the kitchen when we go back. I love having them in the living areas of the house, they are all so sociable and confident, it's lovely. Nothing fazes them, DC can be running round the room shrieking and they just don't bat an eyelid! Although they can be quite squeaky and noisy in the evenings. I do always warn babysitters not to get spooked by wheeks and rustling late at night

Our guineas don't smell unless, as others have said, they are overdue a clean out. (You can smell the fresh hay but it's a clean smell if that makes sense) I do a major clean once a week and a mid week freshen up. I use finacard bedding which is a soft shredded cardboard, works really well.

I would love to try a C&C cage at some point but the ones we have work well for now and the pigs are very content and happy and spoiled rotten

I have two shop cages in the lounge, one 100cm by 100cm, which is really good as it gives them plenty of room to run about and two 120cm cages joined in an L shape. Three piggys in each (two girls and a neutered boar)

Oh and a skinny pig in my bedroom lol! just doing intros currently so not sure where she is going, I was planning on getting a skinny once the two 6yr olds had gone but hey ho :D
Can I ask, those of you that use fleece, what do you put underneath? I have tried towels before but that's a fair bit of washing and dryings a nightmare with no outside!

Hi u use fleece/vet bed with puppies pads underneath. 😃

In our piggies indoor winter night cage , they currently have:

half a bag (from a 30 litre sack) of small animal safe wood pellets to give a really nice deep base.
On one half, puppy pad + fleece .Other half to prance about, they are very good and pee in the fleece.
Luckily mine aren't really chewers so they don't eat the puppy pad. I roll up the fleece+pad and throw it out.
Fleeces are £3 from Primark, I get six pieces.
They're a pain to wash so for 50p , my machine is spared. I don't have loose hay everywhere.
(They have hay cookies)
If I get a good supply of shreddings, they have that instead of fleece (but there's only a limited amount of suitable shredding card)

Dd1 keeps her two boars in her room. They have a 200cm tall 80cm wide ikea bookcase laid down, with plastic sheeting lining the bottom and vet bed over the top. Every four days we wash the bedding. It doesn't smell and is dust free.