Best cage for guinea pigs

[babybythesea]

We are about (I hope) to get 4 boys as pets for the school I work in.
I am taking primary responsibility for them and they will be coming home with me, not going to families for holidays etc. We have an indoor cage that we can use for transport, but I need a decent hutch for school and for home.

I have two boys at home already and we have a wooden two storey one, where we can open the bottom door, put a run around it and they have space to roam. But the bedroom space would not accommodate four, so we need one that is considerably bigger. It’s also not as sturdy as I would like. When we replace it we need to do so with something much more robust.
If you have multiple pigs, what hutch do you have?

Neutering boars won;t make them any less liable to fight . It wotks with just about any other male animal but with piggies it won't change their temper .
It makes them safe to pair with sows and lessens their risk of impaction. Many rescues will castrate boars (even a pair) so if one dies you can get sows for your lone boar without waiting the 6 weeks sterile time .
There's a risk and a cost too .(about £60ish)

Boar pairs are a very artificial pairing , given the choice they'd like a hareem of sows to think they're in charge of . My two boars who did have wives were spectacularly under the thumb .

If you put boars together then two is company three's a crowd.
They do need a lot of space .
Our first bonded boys had a playhouse with a big haybox (House was 6'6" x 6'6" and the haybox was 3' x3') They both slept in their but opposite corners - you could tell by the pooh .
If they wanted they slept in the same box . we gave them a few cardboard boxes , you need 2 doors so one pig cannot trap the other .

The first winter we had them in at night in a 4x2 which we had to divide . This was just to sleep in they went to their Pighouse (all prepped with clean hay and a little heater ) and were happy .
Then we thought give them a box of hay each , no divide and if they get the hump put a cover over so they know It's Night Time .
They seems settled with this , their own space but could meet up .

When we bonded GP1 with Piglet GP3 (after GP2 died) we got a pen for them for winter nights in the small bedroom . GP 3 grew huge (Rex) and quickly decided he was Alpha , GP1 was quite laid back with this .
In the Pighouse GP3 had the haybox and GP1 had a hedgehog house that he was happy to retire to .

C&C are a really good option for space and adaptability . I bought some 14" grids from Costco , secured with cable ties . They had clips but I couldn't fathom them. We di single storey (mine weren't into climbing )

You can re-arrange the space , change the boxes round to keep them interested . Tunnels are good too .

My DH wasn't wild about the pigs but he dutifully sorted out the Playhouse to make it safe , lights , secure , removable windows with protective lining for ventilation.
He'd buy them veg on the way home and leave a lawn patch for their run.

I ended up with 5 at one point too .

When we got the first two boars (my DD wanted a male) then went on to add the piglet after one died . We didn't want to put a male with GP3 (he weighed 1.4kg!) so got him snipped and two feisty wives .
When he died , we gt the lovely GP6 for them, then another two sows later...but the new ones wouldn't join the herd .
So we had a 3+2 for a while .
Boars are lovely cuddly soppy articles but you need to respect their need for space , expect and anticipate any spats .

What worked for ours was a bath (smell the same , get them in a bad mood with us ) complete deep clean of their bedding and move things . They then ponder What The Heck went on here !

Downside of C&C is the hay gets everywhere !
You need to line it , pigs cannot walk on the grids . We used cardboard , easy to replace and a couple of layers makes a good base . If you bring the sides up higher there's a better chance of keeping the hay in.

We cut the neck and base off a plastic bottle , secured it to the outside of the C&C with cable ties and put their water bottle into it with the tube poking through the grid . Much easier that trying to attach the water bottle each time

Puppy pads and newspaper , fleece if you use it .

We made a lid when my DBro cat visited for safety .

@70isaLimitNotaTarget

Downside of C&C is the hay gets everywhere ! You need to line it , pigs cannot walk on the grids . We used cardboard , easy to replace and a couple of layers makes a good base . If you bring the sides up higher there's a better chance of keeping the hay in.

We cut the neck and base off a plastic bottle , secured it to the outside of the C&C with cable ties and put their water bottle into it with the tube poking through the grid . Much easier that trying to attach the water bottle each time

Puppy pads and newspaper , fleece if you use it .

We made a lid when my DBro cat visited for safety .

Our c and c cage is just a shell - ie we don’t have grids underfoot or a lid, the grids literally just provide an outside edge around the perimeter and we have correx (coloured corrugated plastic) for the bottom. The c and c cages are flimsier than “normal” cages. I guess if someone is looking for something for a really busy school environment or where there’s cats etc they probably wouldn’t be suitable unless you could somehow reinforce them, but they do provide the best possible living areas for piggies.

We use black cable ties from eBay to hold ours together as the connectors that come with the cages generally don’t hold very well. I just tie them up tight and trim the excess off so they look neat.

I have seen some really nice huge perspex sided cages for guineas , like massive tanks , on wheels ........

They'd need ventilation holes (especially if they have a cover ) so they don't overheat .
And need to be not too deep otherwise you'd never catch them .

But they'd keep the debris in and give the piggies some protection from the noise .
I don;t know if these are enclosures people have made themselves though .

Not a fan of the P@H 'tank' there's no hide away but I suppose it keeps them safe from being prodded and they're open at the top .

I suspect this cage is probably big enough, and it’s currently £70, which isn’t bad.

It's already been said, but please think again about getting 4 males. It's almost unheard of for 4 male guinea pigs to stay together without fighting their whole lives. They do best in pairs.

If you want a larger group, get females, or one neutered boar and some females (only one boar with females though - otherwise they fight).