A wonderful hobby for children and for adults is keeping guinea pigs. And because of this guinea pigs are becoming an extremely popular pet. However if you’re now considering buying your first piggy you do need to first spend some time thinking about the guinea pig hutch you will house him in.
Your new piggie will be kept in a guinea pig hutch in most cases. They can be kept indoors or outdoors although if kept outdoors you should be aware that they can be subject to stress from excess heat or cold. But before you buy your first guinea pig house you need to be aware of several things.
The majority of cages you find in pet shops or on the Internet are way too small, and will subject your new family members to a cramped lifestyle lacking in exercise and fun. Of course the reason that most people end up with a cage that is too small is that the smallest hutches are the cheapest. You need to make every effort to ensure that the hutch that you buy for your favourite pet is sufficiently large even if it means spending some extra money.
One way to overcome this problem is to build your own guinea pig hutch, and if you can scrounge simple second-hand materials you can do so very successfully and quite cheaply, and can make him a nice large cage.
However once you have your new hutch it is important to know that a guinea pig still needs entertainment, they will get bored easily. The best way of course to provide entertainment is to provide a companion, however if you do that you need to pay particular attention to which sexes you put together.
If you put 2 males together you can have fighting, and if you put a male with a female you’ll end up with lots of baby guinea pigs unless you desex one of them, or unless you separate them which defeats the whole purpose. The best combination is to buy 2 young females and house them together.
And you’ll also need to provide something for your piggies to chew on as their teeth grow continuously and they need to chew to help wear them down. A piece of wood is sufficient and if they don’t have this they will chew on their hutch. As well they need a constant supply of fresh hay and some playthings such as plastic pipes or boxes for them to play in.
So before you buy one or more guinea pigs understand the requirements for adequate housing, in particular buy or build a guinea pig hutch that is sufficiently spacious, provide them with playthings, and if you are buying more than one make sure you buy the correct sexes.