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Hello from Canada. I'm glad my piggies fit inside my igloo!

HoneyBadger

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I have two Abyssinian lady pigs that I picked up from a family about 2 months ago. This is my first time owning guinea pigs and I have been very grateful for all the resources available on this site. After having numerous questions answered by searching the forums I decided it was about time to make my own profile.

My two piggies are Blue Moon and Lilliputian. Blue is on the left and the one on the other left is Lilli. The family I picked them up from told me they were about a year old. That sounds good enough to me.

IMG_1124.jpg

I did a little research before I picked them up so I had my C&C grids already waiting at home for them when they arrived. They came with a bunch of CareFresh and so that's what I kept them on for about the first month. Once my 2x4 cage and wooden second level were complete I realized I was going to need an entire $30 bag of CareFresh each time I changed their bedding, which was just too expensive. I was hesitant to use fleece as I thought it would be a pain to clean but the low cost of it forced me to give it a try. I'm now about a month into using the fleece and I'm quite happy with it.

IMG_1150.jpg

IMG_1156.jpg


I feel like the second level crowds out the bottom level somewhat, so I'm thinking about expanding the base to 3X4, I just need to learn how to sew...

The second level is their kitchen/hay area. The fleece forest (Big thanks to MrWhistles for the idea and wonderful tutorial: https://www.guineapigcages.com/forum/threads/76054-Easy-Pesy-Fleece-Forest!) gets moved when it's veggie time so they aren't too crowded. The wooden house on the bottom was built to go into the hay tray but I've since decided to build an improved version. So at the moment their hay tray is just the liner, which is simply the bottom 3 inches cut away from a Blue Bin. The second level and ramp are two pieces to make them easier to put in and take out of the cage, but they can also be set up during floor time to give the piggies access to hay without making a mess of the carpet.

IMG_1052.jpg

That's just where I put them when I'm cleaning the cage/switching the fleece. They have a bigger area covered with fleece for when they are going to spend a few hours on the floor.

IMG_1159.jpg


I take their huts/beds, tunnel, bottle and pellet bowl in with them when they are going for floor time usually. That pic was just to show the area. I have a large tinfoil baking dish lined with newspaper and covered with hay in the corner that they use for the majority of their mess. It's tough to tell in the picture but the white coroplast wall at the bottom stretches around the corner to the right and is the same piece you can see in the top right corner. It is just the leftover from making the cage liner and luckily fit pretty well into that space.


Sorry for the length of the post! As you can tell I'm new to this and just want to get as many opinions as possible as to what I'm doing that is wrong or could use improvement. Any and all feedback is greatly appreciated. Thanks!!
 

Pipandpoppy

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I love your cage so much.
Id keep the top in storage, but expand the bottom.
Your piggies are so cute.
Do they use the top level because if they enjoy it I would leave there.
 

HoneyBadger

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Thanks for your reply! They use the top level quite a bit as it's where all their hay is. The last couple of days I've been swapping it in and out here and there and just leaving an empty kleenex box stuffed with hay for them. They don't seem to care too much either way. The only downside for me is that they tend to poop everywhere without the top level as they normally do a lot of their business in the hay tray.
 

Princess_Piggie

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Oh my gosh, that's such an amazing cage! Welcome to the forum also :)

You'll find alot of us refer to the food/poop area as the kitchen, but it's really a kitchen/bathroom because where a pig eats, a pig poops lol But it helps contain the mess! I'd keep the top level in if they use it happily, no sense removing extra space if they enjoy it. Especially not if it makes cleaning easier!
 

Rywen

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Welcome to the forum! Your girls are very cute piggies!
 

lunarminx

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Welcome to the forum. I love the cage. You could make the whole loft a kitchen/hay box when they are fully grown. I don't think it crowds out the base, if you mean its harder to clean, you could make it so the four front grids flip down for cleaning. Leave the connectors, ziptie the grids together except at the ends where you would use binder clips. I would also add a grid cut down so the didn't jump out of the loft.
 

lunarminx

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I also love how you gave them the small bale of hay like that!
 

HoneyBadger

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Thanks for the feedback (even if you're a Scouser :))!
 

HoneyBadger

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Rywen - Thanks! The little ladies always appreciate compliments!

lunarminx - I was thinking about expanding their hay box as they don't seem comfortable enough with each other to both be in there at the same time at the moment. My only hesitation is that I swap the contents of their tray every two days and even with the size of the current tray I am throwing away the majority of the hay I put in there. I'm not concerned about the cost, $5/bale means a full tray only costs a few (non-existent) pennies, I just don't want to be throwing out hay that I don't have to.

The second level makes it harder to clean in that I have to take it out of the cage to lift the bottom liner when I do the daily cleaning, but that's not much of an issue. It's more just how the cage appears to me. The top level greatly reduces the viewing area into the bottom level, which is why I've been taking it out every now and then. But I think the benefits of the large hay tray and the exercise they get from going up and down the ramp outweigh my slight aversion to the reduced view.

I added 2 pieces of grid to the top, on the exposed side of the hay tray, that I had cut out from the bottom level. After 2 or 3 top-ups of hay it gets to be above the level of the walls and I didn't want them falling off. I had wondered about the level of the wall on the rest of the loft before. Is there really much danger of a piggie trying to jump over that wall? From what I can tell they seem well aware that jumping off is a bad idea.
 
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