New home

[HoopaPoop]

We have just bought a double guinea pig cage for our two boys (now known as Piggington Towers). They are happy upstairs and happy downstairs but won't go up and down the ramp themselves. Any suggestions . They have food and a house in both areas

You may well need to alter the ramp I'm afraid Hoopa.

How old are your boys?
The double decker ramped houses I've seen are quite steep and most are smoothish wood with little 'rungs'.
Guineas are not the most agile critters on the earths crust.

We have a shallow incline ramp in the Pighouse (my DH did the inside, I designed it). It's wide (about 7"-8" ) carpeted and an L shape. Goes to the top of the haybox (there's carpet on the top too).
DD puts the boys (mine are 2 yo) on the haybox lid and they will scuttle down as fast as their little food seeking legs will carry them. Only GP2 will climb up it, but not very often.

Yours need to use the ramp to get the benefit of both floors of their house.Have you got room to make a shallower,longer ramp. Or you could carpet it for more grip?

Try making a tunnel over it, they will feel more secure and hopefully totter up and down.

I did wonder if it was too steep but they don't seem to have any trouble climbing the sides of the cages every time I go outside the back door incase I'm bringing grass back for them. So they need a carpeted tunnel , and I thought they were pampered piggies before.

Red carpet, obviously.

@ red carpet

Ours have some leftover from the stairs (biscuity coloured, very soothing)

Mine have no incentive to climb up the ramp (I thought they might like to sit there is summer) but much incentive to scurry down to where the food/salad/hay/hidey boxes are .

GP2 looks like a little hedgehog when he scampers down

As a temporary measure I have covered the ramp with a pair of old track suit trousers to make it less slippery and put a pile of peppers at the bottom to see if this will entice them down. They seem quite happy to stay in the penthouse at the moment though as they are enjoying the improved view of the television and the outside door ( so they can sound an alarm if none comes in without a handful of grass)

Hi - wondering how the ramp is working out.... a friend gave me a double storey hutch and I could not get them to go up and down the ramp even after weeks of trying - they can go up OK, but really dont like coming down - very frustrating..... and yet you can see guineas on You Tube running up and down all manner of contraptions. Bonkeys idea of making it into a tunnel is a good one, there has to be an incentive and they have to feel safe! Maybe even inserting a mezzanine (!!!!) so it is not such a deep drop for them - ie putting the ramp onto an interim level if such a thing is possible!!! In the end ours lived on the ground floor and I left the door open so they could get out and explore the shed floor, all on the same level - must be a spatial thing to do with their vision? Good luck anyway - !

We have had partial success . Fris spent all Saturday evening gradually creeping down then retreating now he is going up and down in a flash . Fin doesn't want to know, although when they were being cleaned out this evening Fris pushed Fin up the ramp.