Hidey Houses

[WendyK]

I'm full of questions today -please bear with me. Do you think hidey houses encourage bonding or discourage it? In my experience they seem to separate the pigs.

[gooberific]

It does give them a sense of security, and every animal needs its own "space" sometimes, including us humans!

If your hidey houses are big enough or your cavies small enough, you will also sometimes find that more than one piggie will be cuddled up in there.

I don't think it affects bonding... but I'm also not a cavy psychologist.

[Wheek Weak]

We don't use hidey houses. Instead, we make tents out of 30"x30" fleece baby blankets tied to the sides of the cage.

I've noticed that they will sleep snuggled up together in the tents at times, yet will sleep alone in them if they want their own space for a while.

I suppose it's the same with pigloos/boxes, but it just seems to me that they're more apt to share the tent than they were the pigloos (when we used them).

[WendyK]

Yes - I've gravitated toward a similar set-up. I got one of those hammock fleecy things they make for ferrets and hang it so it's like a canopy. They stick together under this canopy. I believe it gives them enough privacy and it's less hot in the summer. When I had the pigloos in their cage all the time, my more dominant girl was always claiming them and the less dominant girl would "wait outside" the pigloo as if she was saying "Won't you come out and play now?" I'm saving my various pigloos and hidey houses for floor time - gives them new and different things to explore.

[mikew]

I did the same thing with the hammock thing i bought. I tried getting them to use it as a hammock but they're not interested so I just made it into a canopy too.

[mikew]

I have pigloos too and stuff but they don't seem to want to cuddle together. I have one pigloo and another little house that I made. The hidey house is big enough for two but they never cuddled together so I bought the pigloo. I think I may just get rid of the hidey house or use it for playtime and buy another pigloo so it takes up less space in the cage. I mean if they are not going to cuddle together than there's no point of taking up space.

[cavyinhawaii]

My pigs don't share. I think they are like people some are cuddly and some aren't. I have one pig that will follow the other pigs in the hammock or the pigloo and will quickly get booted out.