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Colorful guinea pig cages are fun for cavies and humans alike
Before our Humans became guinea pig care-takers, they read every kind of guinea pig book they could find.
From blogs to textbooks, Human #1 and #2 did everything they could to learn the ins and outs of what it takes to make a cavy truly happy when it comes to guinea pig health, cage construction, behavior, and even play toys. But, they soon found out that until you first welcome a little cavy into your home, you really never know what to expect.
Each guinea pig has its own, unique personality and they seem to come to their Forever Humans as little furr-balls that are pre-loaded with his or her own distinct likes, dislikes, and personality quirks.
One of the first things our Humans realized after welcoming home the first HappyCavy (Piglet) was that the cage they constructed was ill-conceived, poorly executed, and in desperate need of a make-over.
Plus, the first version of the cage was drab, dull, and boring!
The Humans were using fleece bedding, which Piglet loved (soft and comfy)! But the fleece was a terribly ugly shade of bluish-gray…not exciting. At all. The ugly fleece created an environment that seemed sterile and institutional, like some kind of crazy mental hospital or depressing waiting room. Ugh!
But The Humans paid no mind to their seemingly inconsequential guinea pig cage design folly. They thought everything was great — Piglet was happy and in a good home.
After the second guinea pig came home (Hammy), The Humans knew that this Boring Guinea Pig Cage wasn’t going to be enough to keep the HappyCavies excited and interested in their new Forever Home environment.
So, slowly and carefully, Human #1 began adding a few “cage accessories” like a disco ball and little toys like alphabet blocks and used toilet paper rolls.
But the most obvious improvement to the old, boring, who-want’s-it cage was the use of bright- and bold-colored towels with fun, cute patterns our Humans used as accent areas.
Colorful Towels in Guinea Pig Cage
After the introduction of the fun towels and fleece, the HappyCavies immediately became curious and started wheeking, chutting, and happily exploring their new cage design. In fact, Hammy was so excited that she was seen popcorning several times in a row!
Currently, The Humans have an entire stockpile of colorful, patterned towels, most of them were purchased at Target Department Store. The kids bath section at Target has some really cute and colorful hand-towels and beach towels to choose from.
The Humans also try to balance their guinea pig cage designs between fun/cute and tacky/ugly.
As of the writing of this post, The HappyCavies have a large beach towel covering most of the bottom level of the cage (plus, the towel is reversible so the design can be changed easily without spending more money).
There is also an absorbent lap pad covering the back right corner of the cage, just opposite the Kitchen Area. This fabric helps not only to absorb wee and stinky smells, but the colors are really bright and fun (especially the lime green pad)!
But can guinea pigs really see in color?
Guinea pigs actually can see in color. Guinea pigs have dichromatic sight, meaning that they can probably see most colors as Humans see, but textures and exact colors may be a bit off. So “visual stimulation” — the excitement one might feel when viewing the color red, and the calm they may feel with blue — can possibly help your guinea pig stay interested and active in their home environments.
And who knows, your little piggie may just give you a kiss for turning a dull, boring cage into a new and exciting place to run and explore.
Share Your Thoughts
What do you use to keep your guinea pigs interested in their environment? Do you have a favorite cage accessory? Or perhaps you have a tip to share on how guinea pig owners can add functional and fun elements to their piggie’s environment.
Please share your thoughts below in the comments section!
It’s ok for them to not have the hay/wood bedding? Did they go to the bathroom on the towels?
Hi Kristin!
Guinea pigs have sensitive pads on their feet, so wood is generally not good for guinea pigs. Although hay bedding is softer, guinea pig urine can interact with wood or hay bedding sometimes causing mold. They can go potty right on the towels – I usually add 1 layer of newspaper, some sprinkles of baking soda where they like to go to the bathroom (it reduces smell), a layer of towels ontop of the newspaper/baking soda, and fleece bedding ontop of that.
Every guinea pig owner has their own way of cage bedding. Check out http://www.guineapigcages.com/bedding.htm for some ideas
I currently have two male guinea pig who dig into news paper and leave a big mess will using towels instead of hay bedding help eliminate this problem? and how did you create the stair case that is in your guinea pig cage?
Using towels should help with your babies’ messiness problem. Our cage has a layer of towels underneath the fleece and also another colorful towel (like the one you see in the webcam) on top of the fleece. That way we can easily change out the colorful towel during the week to help keep the cage clean. We find that using towels reduces messes that you get with beddings like hay and newspaper. I saw go for towel and fleece bedding!
We made our staircase ramp out of a piece of wood. We covered it with plastic ribbed shelf liner bought at Home Depot (gives the ramp traction and it’s easy to clean). Coroplast was used to make the sides of the ramp. There are some really good ideas for ramps here, too: http://guineapigcages.com/photos/showgallery.php/cat/523
When you say fleece bedding, what do you mean? And could you explain your layering system from the bottom up? I am interested in your system because after years of using Aspen bedding, I want to try something less dusty and hard on my piggies’ feet. Thank you!
Hi Else!
Here’s how we bed the cavy home:
1st layer – newspaper (I sprinkled some baking soda on top of the newspaper to absorb odor)
2nd layer – Towels
3rd layer – Fleece
The fleece lets the wee pass right through it so it gets absorbed by the towels underneath, which leaves the fleece dry for the piggies.
I will be buying a custom made fabric bedding flooring from PiggieBedSpreads.com. They are a little pricey, but if you have just a pig or two you can literally clean their cage in under 10 minutes. (Feebee and Buttercup came with bedding from here and I was amazed at how easy it was to use).
Plus Piggy Bed Spreads are antibacterial and odor resistant. I know I am plugging them pretty hard but I really like how their bedding works – and once we buy custom bedding we won’t have to do as much laundry as we do now 🙂
I hope that answers your question! Let me know what you go with 🙂
How do you get rid of poops throughout the week? Do you vacuum? 🙂
Hi Britt!
The humans clean while the piggies have floor time. Just a quick vacuum and some towel replacements are done.
Also, throughout the day the poos are scooped using a silver (colored) spoon….no joke. It helps keep it clean between changings ~ we think all guinea pigs should be treated to silver-ish spoon poop cleanups 🙂
We change the decorative towels once every two days, but we do a thorough cage cleaning (i.e., washing the piggy bedspreads) once every two weeks. Before using the bedspreads, we had to do a thorough cleaning every week. The humans are saving a lot of time and money on washing expenses!
Hi, Summer! Thank you for commenting, SOOO happy to hear you’ve been visiting us for so long! You sure have seen a lot of happy times 😀
Keep spreading the word, and please keep coming back! We love that you’re a part of our life 😀
~ Hammy, Feebee, & Buttercup xx
*Hehe* I do look more like a field mouse or hamster than a guinea pig. I’m like a guinea pig in disguise, I guess 😀
But by the way, I’m a girl 😉 ~ Hammy
Our Humans got the webcams online, they’re pretty cheap, each one was under $20. 🙂
Link: http://bit.ly/cavy-webcam
Hi, Joy! Welcome to HappyCavy, so glad you like our website 🙂
We got our web cams here: http://bit.ly/cavy-webcam, and the website was setup by Human #1 on WordPress. It was a custom site that was built by hand, but you can get a free WordPress site at http://wordpress.com
Our cams stream through Justin.tv and are embedded on the site.
If you setup a guinea pig cam, come back and let us know, we love watching other peegs 😀
I put a camera in my peegs cage one time and they went beserk! my girl peeg , lola mostly chewed on the edge of the camera. my other peeg charlie was a little bit more shy. I have bin looking at the website for about 6 months and i luuuvvvv it Thnx 4 all the hard work you put into it! 8)
my mom luvs the site! she has gotten all the people at her work to get a peeg and they all watch the webcams. u r amazing and i can’t wait until dot joins the girls!
So happy she likes it! We can’t wait for her to join in the fun, either! 😀
You bet! Yeah, the cams have to be in an area where they won’t get chewed. But, after several years of “filming”, we barely notice them!
I am soooooooooooooo happy you replied! also, I find myself calling my guinea pigs piggaleepuffs. Is that normal? 🙂
As a guinea pig, nothing a Human does is normal! I try to reply to as many comments as I can, and I also welcome anyone to email me at happycavy at gmail.com if they want to chat more 😀 I try my best to reply as soon as my piggie paws can type!
we just built a C&C cage yesterday and we love it and highly recommend it! Lola, the girl pig was scared at first but she has now gotten used to it…. i think! 🙂 Charlie, however loved it! he popcorned around the cage for an hour and then he continued to show his appreciation by running up and down the catscratch forever!
another question, am i able to post a video response/comment and if so, how do i do that?
Yes, you can post video responses & comments. You’ll have to upload your video to YouTube and then paste the video link in your comment. The video will then be automatically embedded into your comment. Hope that’s not too confusing 😀
this is lolapig and i am back with some awesome news! our guinea pig lola is … pregnant!!! u can feel the babies and they sure r kicking a lottttt! is there any specific care that needs to be done with pregnant pigs besides putting the food on the bottom level so she doesn’t have to go upstairs? 🙂 8)
We’re not familiar with guinea pig pregnancies, but here a few links that might help (I can’t vouch for the accuracy of all the info contained in these links, please use your best judgment):
– http://www.wikihow.com/Care-for-a-Pregnant-Guinea-Pig
– http://kb.rspca.org.au/I-think-my-guinea-pig-might-be-pregnant-what-should-I-do_354.html
In the future, you can ask Hammy questions directly on the Ask Hammy page 😀
I’m back with some sad news…Lola did have her baby but it didn’t survive. When my mom and I went back to give them food and water the baby was already dead beside their food bowl and it appeared that it had never lived and was born dead. 🙁 we had a funeral and Lola got to come.
So sorry to hear about the loss of the little one 🙁 That was very thoughtful for you to have a funeral, and now it’s time to focus on the care and emotional support of the momma. Best wishes to you and Lola! xx ~Hammy
i think reusing thing like shoe boxes,alcohol’s box out of which u get out the bottle is great. any other ideas how i can reuse things and make it comfortable for them.
I have 2 guinea pigs at home 1 boy named Henry who looks just like dot. on the other hand 1 is a girl named Helen who looks just like buttercup.
that’s bad news but best of luck to u and Lola!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Love the names Henry and Helen. Precious 🙂
Check out our post Cheap and (Almost) Free Toys for Guinea Pigs. It might give you some good ideas!
I never thought about if my cavies might be bored, I bought the sock monkey pattern and then the tool set pattern, Hershey loves staring dow at the sock monkeys. It’s so cute!