BABY PROOFING!!! Help!

[CactusCavy]

I never thought I'd ever need to baby-proof my cage, seeing as I thought it quite unlikely that I was going to get any pigg young or small enough to need it...

Gabrielle, my sister Fiona's (yes, just like the princess in Shriek) baby pigg, is little enough to fit through the cubes on my 2x5 cage, and we were worried that she would get out in the middle of the night, and then one of our 3 cats would get her. (She and her sister Elora are spending the night in an old store-bought cage of mine.)

So, what is baby-proofing, and how can I use it on my cage to keep Gabrielle from getting out or hurt by our cats?!!

~Cactus

P.S. She's not as young as you might think... She's 19 days today, and is eating pellets and veggies. If she wasn't, we wouldn't have brought her home.

[ParanoidEv]

I thought babies need to be with their mom for 3 weeks because of the milk... they eat veggies from birth on.

[CavySpirit]

See these photos: http://www.cavycages.com/photos/showgallery.php?cat=532&si=&page=1&sort=1&perpage= 12&password=&ppuser=&what=&name=&=

Double up the grids if you have any divided grid separators.

Temporarily make the coroplast sides higher with scrap coro or cardboard.

Remove any grid or wire hay racks from inside the cage. Use something else for racks.

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Females should remain with their mother for 5 weeks. Males for 3 weeks. You should NOT separate them earlier than 3 weeks. They won't die, but there is no reason to do it unless you lose the mother. Optimum time is as I've stated.

[rabbitsncavyluv]

They can eat hard foods as soon as they are born, but they need to stay with their Mom and littermates longer for a variety of reasons. Where did you get her?

[CactusCavy]

Erm, CavyCrazyMom's neighbor... You could ask CCM more about it... (I feel really stupid.) She (CCM) said they could go, so my mom decided to take them on home yesterday....

(Gabrielle can just barely squeeze through, and Elora is a bit too plump. There was another girl--we didn't see her--that was the littlest, and the neighbor said she wanted to keep her a while longer.--CCM told us she said that, we didn't meet the neighbor.--)

[DaCourt]

These new babies should have been quarentined before putting them in with Alice and Astrid (sorry, I don't remember their wonderful new names). They should be quarentined for at least 3 weeks (preferably 1 month), in a seperate room. You can give us a call if you have any questions on this.

[suzy_99]

My guinea pig Taz just had babies about 3 weeks ago and although they can no longer fit through the cage, they could just a few days ago. I baby proofed my cage just by putting tall enough cardboard in behind the coroplast (for support). I never had any problems with this besides that they sometimes enjoyed to chew on it. It doens't look as nice as other methods, but since it is only temporary, I figured that it did not matter.

http://www.cavycages.com/photos/data/507/1333s_home-med.jpg

I only had to do the top because my coroplast on the bottom is quite high (we have three cats that like to stick their paws in the cage)