free-range

[RustBottum]

Hi,
I was reading and i said that some people let their guinea pigs run, free range around their house. I just don't get how people could do that. Don't you find poo or pee everywhere? Or aren't you worried they will get stuck somewhere or lost?

[Treen]

Mine free range by day. I've covered over/ blocked off anything I don't want them to get to, or in to, so it's perfectly safe from that angle. Took a while to get it sorted but once it's done and you get used to not putting certain stuff on the floor etc., it's no trouble. And they're fully toilet trained so don't leave any presents for me! I leave their cage open and they simply go back in to relieve themselves and then come out again.

I usually shut them in when there are other people round - simply because although we're well trained to look where we're putting our feet, other people aren't used to guinea pigs walking across the room and might accidentally hurt them.

[RustBottum]

that is really cool. I don't think my family would like that very much right now but i was just wondering what people did. Thank you for responding.

[GuineaTV]

This was the one bad thing about having more than one guinea pig - although I would never go back to having one, when I had only Charlie (my original pride and joy) I was able to let him run around half the apartment during floor time (with parts blocked) and he was so good about pottying in the correct places! He had so much space to run! Once he had a companion, he stopped paying attention to his potty habits!

When we moved, I had my pigs "free-range" for a while, but that only meant half of one room blocked by a grid "fence". It was more like semi-permanent floor time. I didn't have them wandering all around the house. I had potty stations set up throughout the space with newspaper in hidey houses and other prime peeing real estate, but unfortunately mine were far from reliably potty trained, especially once they got used to the space and began to treat the whole area like their cage. I found that the bigger I made the space, the less likely they'd use it the whole thing like a cage, but there was a lot of poop-sweeping and carpet shampooing on my part. Next time, I would get them their own indoor/outdoor carpet, cover it with a sheet, pick up the sheet daily to shake out the poops, and replace the carpet every few months (cheaper than bedding!)

Right now we're in a smaller apartment so I went with the more traditional C&C cage with daily floor time. I'm trying to set it up so the pigs can be on floor time the whole time we're out at work. Maybe even use grids and carpet "runners" to make a running track between the rooms at night, so Zorro can do his 11 pm laps without us tripping over the floortime fence.

[piggielover]

Cute, i wish i could do that with my future piggies, but we have 2 cats and 2 dogs. the dogs wouldn't hurt them, well, the puppy would just want to play, and the cats hunt, so my piggies would be their next meal.

[Piglet]

Treen, that is so cool! I don't think my parents would approve of having free range pigs.

[phantac]

No free range piggies here either.