Hay Making a mess & peeing in it

[cassiekupo]

My boys have a hay feeder that I made for them out of coroplast; the hay is accessible through two cut-out rectangles, about halfway down a C&C grid. They like this a lot more than their previous setup but they also have a strong tendency to pull as much hay out of the box as they possibly can, and they proceed to scatter it around that section of the cage and pee in it. So I end up throwing out a fair portion of the hay that I give them because it's inedible.

Any advice on making sure more hay is eaten than peed on?

 

[bpatters]

Nope. It's part of the price of having guinea pigs. They'll find the ONE strand of hay they want to eat and munch on it, then pull out 49 more and pee on them.

 

[lunarminx]

If you leave that hay for a day, they will eat the pieces they don't soil on. Sounds nasty but its normal, many of us just moved to hay piles or boxes for that reason.

 

[Ibbet]

Agreed it is just a part of owning these funny little creatures. I just put hay piles in now and have for years because pigs seem to enjoy it more and there's no use in fighting it! lol

 

[CuddleWoozle]

Yeah, I tried putting the hay in a holder and they didn't seem like they were getting enough. So I pulled it all out, put it in a big 'haystack' and let them demolish it. They seem a LOT happier about that. I might get a little box or bowl just to try and keep it in. More for my sanity of where to put it that anything else. (Gah. I'm kind of OCD. I need to have somewhere to put something. The piggies don't seem to care as long as it's there.)

 

[lisa325]

I hear you about the OCD thing. I made this hay rack by bending a cube and attaching a piece of coroplast on the back with zip ties to contain the hay. I found this idea online, and it's working really well. The piggies get some exercise from it too as they stretch to the top for their choice pieces of hay. It keeps things neat and tidy.

 

[CuddleWoozle]

That looks really cool. I'm going to have to try making them a safe hay 'silo' next. XD