Guinea pigs smelling!

[HelpAGirlOut1234]

Hi folks,

I have 2 lovely female pigs, one is 5years, the other is 6 months. I have a C and C cage with fleece bedding and the smell is driving me crazy.

It's a poop smell... poops seem fine and healthy, both girls are regularly vet checked and healthy. The cage is regularly cleaned, but they still smell!

For example, took the whole cage apart on Sunday, washed all the grids and inserts, fresh fleece bedding and gave both the girls a bath... by Monday evening when I got home, they were smelly again.

This has been going on over a year I'd say. I used to have a smaller cage with shavings as bedding and I don't remember them smelling this bad.

Could it be their diet? Something else? As I said, they're both healthy, last had them at the vets for a check up 3 weeks ago.

Any advice is really welcome, I keep them in the living room and I'm sick of it smelling all the time 😭

Are they in season. My sows were evil smelling in season. I did have a couple of sows with a castrated boar who were probably worse than the sows who lived alongside. They were so bad tempered too for 24-36 hours.

i was not a fan of fleece TBH we used newspaper over a puppy pad and hay on top, only fleece in winter on the floor , hay in their sleeping boxes

If you wash the fleece in something scented they might try and outdo it by peeing more. Neutral detergent and no fabric conditioner. Fabric conditioner stops the fleeces from wicking too so it could be sitting on the top surface
or have you pu an air freshener or plug in that they don’t like

and are they hydrated enough. Some piggies don’t drink even if you have fresh water on offer they can get enough moisture from vegetables. Maybe they’ve taken against the water bottle check it’s not blocked or dirty , in the wrong place for them.

have a good check on them that there’s no wounds , a bite or overgrooming

guinea pigs hay usually smells te than they do

they are lovely little animals but not the smartest

I don't think it could be an issue with them being in season as it's going on too long.

I wash the fleece in regular detergent which is scented so maybe I'll try something unscented. I don't use conditioner. But it's not urine smell, it's more a poopy smell.

I don't use air fresheners around them as I'm aware they can have respiratory issues so I avoid.

They seem to be well hydrated, clean water bottles always and are drinking enough.

I'm just at a loss, and it's really getting me down. I love them so much but it's so depressing coming home after a days work to a smelly living space, then cleaning them out for it to be stinking again a day later.

Maybe I should go back to shavings as bedding but I'd need a new cage and have spent £400+ on the current set up I have.

Could my older girl just be getting smelly in her old age? Is that a thing?

Have you tried an air purifier? That might help x

Maybe look at their diet, rotate the fresh veg and see if the type makes a difference? Broccoli, cabbage and sugary veg like carrots (sugar could overfeed their bowel flora) would be my first thoughts.

I have found all small animals smell but usually it's the urine, not a poo smell

I stopped using fleece, wood shavings stopped the problem. Its much cooler now too, they lay on that more than they did the fleece.

Mine smell sometimes if they’ve eaten a lot of grass but that’s wee not poo.
I clean mine every day, sometimes twice a day. fleece is a lot of work.

the detergent routine I use is non bio, then extra long rinse with white vinegar as softener. Mostly at 30, occasionally 40 and sometimes I chuck in some napisan for good measure.

I mostly get rid of the smell by lining their cage with adult incontinence sheets and a spinkle of straw over. I limit their wet food like fresh grass otherwise they wee too much. I provide regular pellets and fresh hay and change the inco sheets every 2-3 days. The smell has gone down a lot since then.

With a C&C cage you can make an inner layer to keep bedding inside the cage . Originally they were sold with a plastic liner that could fold to shape . As I was too mean to buy the proper things , I had a grid system from Costco, it was big grid squares for shelves they were a good size and the holes weren’t too big . I used cable ties to fix them together . They’re a pain as you need loads and make sure there’s nothing they can injure themselves on, then you need hefty clippers to remove them if you want to change the cage. But it worked .
i made a liner with cardboard boxes that came up the sides a bit , easy to replace when dirty . Layers of puppy pads and newspaper , easy to roll up and dispose .

They are messy animals . We cleaned the cages every day , especially indoors. Out in their shed we cleaned the sleeping areas every day and the floor space every week at least .

Our boars were tidier than the sows.

I loved the fleeces but over time they got too smelly despite being washed in biological detergent. We changed them every day so until recently kept with fleeces. But they really needed replacing so for now we've gone back to shavings and the smell isn't as bad.

The biological powder is part of the issue you needed to use non bio for them

I have to use fragrance free detergent for washing the fleeces or they really stink. Indoor piggies in large cc cages. I’m tired of washing the fleeces but alternatives create so much mess / waste/ expense. They have igloos with grey absorbent pellets but pee and poop everywhere else too. Previously had a rabbit that used a litter tray - wish I could get the guineas to do the same.

Have you tried putting their food and hay over something plastic, then just line with newspaper / sawdust. The ikea shoe racks are really good for that as they are the size of a 1x2

Thank you so much @ALovelyCupOfNameChange . I have some of those Ikea things - keen to try out!

We all have some of them knocking about.
few are in constructive use 😆

they wee and poo most when eating so I think it does help protect the fleece but you’re still faffing about changing something. We’ve been trying to think of a way to stream line it so it is less work, but I’ve not found it yet!!
I’ve also tried sacking off the hay bag and having plastic corner trays which are filled with hay. They end up sleeping in them as well as having dinner. That seems to work quite well

I had to stop using fleece for this reason. I now use incontinence bed pads ordered from Amazon - they’re paper based so safe to use, the vet actually gave me the idea - and it makes it so easy to clean them out, just roll up and throw away. No horrible smells.

Just a thought. You can swap the wire rings for Perspex ones, which would obviously hold sawdust in much better. Obviously you need the ventilation of the wire ones, it could help for some areas.

I don’t know why my phone decided to call them rings.
the wire grids can be changed for Perspex ones

Don't they chew them?

Yeah they do but it doesn’t matter if they do. Been keeping them this way for years now and no issues.

Can you please share the brand of the paper based pads@NCTDN ? Might give them a try!

Not me I think it's @Pigeonqueen

These are the ones we get - on closer inspection they do have a very thin layer of polymer but ours have been chewing them for years and pooping them out with no issues at all and they are the ones the vet recommended. They are mainly just paper, like a big sanitary towel…

amzn.eu/d/11arNHr

I’m relatively new to guineas. Have two boars and I’ve been using fleece liner and putting their hay in a plastic box lined with newspaper as suggested up-thread. Then put smaller lined fleece squares around the hay box and another under their water bottle. They seem to do most of their peeing and a lot of their pooping in the hay box or on the pads around it as they lean in to eat.

I clean the hay box daily and change the fleece squares every 2-3 days. Main fleece gets a weekly change. There’s some whiff off their pee though! But at least it’s relatively contained.

Mine never chewed puppy pads or bed pads. I had some left over from when the DC were little ( they are also good for defrosting the freezer as they hold way more than a towel ) Guinea pigs are greedy little critters and if you keep them well supplied with hay they’ll eat that .
I bought a confetti cut shredder so any pig -safe paper could be shredded for bedding. Loo roll middles, thin card, anything I thought was safe for them to eat if they felt like it.
Guinea pigs like to chew cardboard, it’s in their rodentey nature. Not fun at 3am in the next room though 🤔
Our boars were much tidier with their toilet habits, when we had two entire brothers they each had a corner of the haybox that they used. The sows just poohed as they walked along.

I have 3 boars ! Brothers ! One of them is naughty ( aggressive ). I read on a forum you can train guineas to use a litter tray with a clicker. Anyone tried this?