Housing help please

perfectaccident · May 10, 2007

I'm looking at getting 1 or 2 cavies, i love them as animals and now I'm no longer sharing an apartment I can.

My only problem is space. My place is an ok size, but thin so i have very little space i can permanently keep their home, without needing to step over it to get to stuff. A friend who works at a vets donated a large cage, which is great size for me, but only about 6 sq feet.

Now I only work maybe 5 hours a day at best, and whenever im home They'll be running arround the floor area as much as possible, so would it still be too small? i'd love to have them running about all the time but i'd be worried that while i'm not there my piggie-proofing would fail.

help and advice please.

oscar · May 10, 2007

You should definatly get 2 guinea pigs as they will be much happier together. Can you really not get a bigger cage as 6 ft is not really enough for 2 pigs. Maybe you could put the cage on top of a table or as a last resort, underneath one? Try rearanging the layout of the room to make more space. You should not leave your pigs free range permantly unless you are 100% sure they can not escape or do themselves any harm

perfectaccident · May 10, 2007

unfortunatly there is a huge (unusable which makes it worse) electric fire in the room as well as 3 doorways which kind of limit space - i got maybe a 4 foot space if i build a shelve/table that will sit over the fire,but i dont want to totally fill that incase ventilation to the sides is bad.

that would leave about 3 feet between everything else in the room to walk around... and theres nothing in there i can get rid of to make space .... like i said only thing i can do is leave them roaming the floor while im home so they get exercise

is it really too small even if i do that? as much as id love piggies i'm not cramp them in a tiny space

merrycat · May 10, 2007

Mebbe if you could sketch out a rough floor plan of your place we could offer suggestions? Then again, if you don't want to, I'd understand that too. It may be a bit personal to spill out on the web lol.

If its a long, skinny space, could you have it against one end of the space?

envisionary333 · May 12, 2007

If you can't make the cage wider, you can always make it taller! Have you thought about adding a second or third floor? There a lot of great examples on this site of cages in cramped spaces that manage to create quite a bit of room in them nevertheless. If you want to get really crazy you could run a sturdy shelf unit across the wall and make a long cage, perhaps with a 1-cube width. (Just a thought... I've always wanted to do that myself!) And I definitely agree with getting two piggies- they will be much happier, friendlier, and a million times more fun to watch. Good luck!

dagwellismypigy · May 12, 2007

envisionary333 said:
If you can't make the cage wider, you can always make it taller!

Not true. Guinea pigs aren't climbing animals, they need to have the proper minimum floor space before you think of adding upper levels.

Really 1.5 less sq. ft. out of your apartment isn't that much. You could put the 6 sq ft cage where you were going to and then tape off an extra 1.5 ft and it will help you realize how little space it is to you, but it really makes a difference for the pigs. Also, if you can only fit a 2X3 cube cage, you should consider a pair of bonded female pigs over males because they tend to do better in smaller spaces.

envisionary333 · May 17, 2007

I meant adding height only after the minimum space (at least) is available in the cage on the bottom level, of course. I am very aware that guinea pigs are not climbing animals, I just thought that if there is only room for the minimum, additional space would still be possible with more levels, as many other people have done on this site. Just trying to help!

perfectaccident · May 31, 2007

thanks for your help everyone.

the lady at the rescue helped out too, i've got a pair of baby sows who've been raised together and they're in the store cage for the moment until i build (in the next month or so as soon as i can find cubes here!) a semi-permament c&c add on to it. The idea is that unless i have visitors and REALLY need the floorspace that they'll have the store cage as a kinda bedroom, but be able to get to the other bit anytime they want.

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Housing help please

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