Piggies squeezing thru the grid?

Our new baby guinea pig has a cube play area. I don't have it lined with Coroplast. We always supervise her when she is in it. I caught her trying to crawl through one of the grid holes. She got most of her head through. I screamed in fear and she backed away. We have had her for three weeks and she was quite small when we got her. I don't know how old she is. I just measured the holes in the cube. The cube is 9 x 9 squares. Each square is a bit less than 1.5 x 1.5 inches or 3.7 cm x 3.7 cm. Is this too large? Maybe I should line the outside with cardboard for the play area so she cannot squeeze through. Has anyone else had this problem?

[CavySpirit]

There is a warning on the site about babies. It's been my experience that babies can get through grids up to about 3 weeks old, depending on the size of the baby.

Allowing really young cavies to play in a cage or play area with just grids for walls is not a good thing. When she gets big enough -not- to get her head stuck it will be fine. In the meantime, whether in a cage or for floortime, you should put some cardboard or something up along the walls so she can't get stuck, especially from a running start.

Normally, in a cage with 6" Coroplast walls, at three weeks you are fine, but in a play area, you need a little more time to be safe, and again it depends on the size of your cavy.

[i love piggies]

I have a male piggie and he is about 3-4 months old and sometimes he will squeeze through the grids too.

But I figured out why he did it. He was threatened by Bernie, who is much older. So I had to put them inseperate cages.

[cavypaulita]

Hi,
When I just adopted my piggies, the very first night, the smallest one managed to get out through the grids. He was there on top of the pellets next to the cage. It was quite a scare! When that happened, I added more coroplast to be on the safe side. I added some extra coroplast high enough so he couldn't get out- and 2 months after that I removed it. Now, 3 months later, he doesn't even try to get out, and he can't because he's grown a lot.

I would put some extra coroplast just to be on the safe side, till your baby grows a little bit.
good luck,
Pauli

[dagwellismypigy]

This post is from 2002. Check the date before you post.

[cavypaulita]

sorry I saw the previous post and it said "today", so I assumed it was from today. I should have checked the others. Didn't notice. As it appeared here in the first place I didn't check twice, just read the previous post.


Thanks,
Pauli