Cleaning Toilet Training(???) or Management

[stephable]

Hi! I'm new to guinea pigs but have had rabbits for years so I'm used to cleaning a bunch but also being able to litter train to an extent. Are guinea pigs able to be litter or toilet trained at all? How do people manage the cleaning?

I'm currently using towels and blankets but I'm making DIY fleece liners with the help of my sister (who sews). Thinking I might make some extra liners and pads for regular toilet locations but don't know how useful it'll be if they just go everywhere?

I've also seen 'kitchens' online, is that just to catch hay or do they toilet when eating like rabbits? How do people keep hay tidy with fleece?

Thanks for any tips/info, I'm deep in the learning stage (have had my piggies 1 week tomorrow!)

 

[4boipigs]

Pigs aren't as easy to potty train like other animals. May not be worth it. I have 4 boys in 2 separate cages. I just pick up their poop several times a day. Usually when I wake up, before I go to work, when I come home from lunch if I have the time, when I get home, and before bed. Some people use vacuums or dustpans/brooms, but I decided picking up by hand is easier.

We also use fleece. You will see pics and videos online of super clean, spotless fleece. Don't get this idea in your head. It will look like this after you change the bedding, and then never again. We have hay everywhere about 95% of the time. Cleaning up after pigs takes a lot of time and there's really no shortcut around it.

I have a kitchen (presumably from this website, I got it used) in one of the cages. I think I prefer no kitchen at all. In my cage without the kitchen, the kitchen uses washable pee pads off Amazon that I switch out every other day because it gets dirty so fast. The hay mostly stays in that area. For the cage with the kitchen, there is still hay everywhere. I'm not sure I like the pigs having to leap over the edge of the kitchen each time, especially for my older boar, so it'll probably be removed once I get around to it.

 

[Smileandnod]

Guinea pigs poo where they sleep, eat and walk... basically all the time, everywhere.

Of course you will find more of an accumulation of poo in the areas they like the most, so a favorite bed and where they eat.

I change out bed pads and their hay area twice a day because these are the dirtiest areas.

I just vacuum the rest of the cage (with a handheld vacuum) and change the larger pads as needed throughout the week.

Personally I just put large hay piles down in an area I add an extra layer of pads.

 

[GuineaPigQueen1]

I agree about the difficult part. I am getting a kitchen suite ( with a backsplash for water bottles and a cover) cage and stand and bins on this website. About the difficult I bought a corner litter box that could fit one piggie. No matter how much hay I put in there and their food bowls beside it they barely used it. Lulu ( One of my piggies) started chewing on it so I took it out ( It was plastic) plus it took space up. I also put carefresh in it what they have used for a little bit. I heard that rabbits had a instinct to go in on place to potty but you need to spay or neuter them. Yeah not the same for guinea pigs. Idk if it is just me but does it seem like sometimes they want to make things difficult for them you on purpose. You could try putting all of there food and most hay in there but you probably need a huge litter box bigger than pet store cages ( In American pet store cages are over rated,overpriced, and over glorified litter boxes that a cat wouldn’t use with the top off or on.)

 

[stephable]

Thanks guys! I'm thinking I'll just make some extra bedding pads that I can put in their favourite spots and the hay feeder areas Don't worry, as a bunny parent I'm used to seeing spotless pens that are realistic for about half a second haha. I'm used to cleaning up a lot of poos because one of my bunnies is resistant to going 2s only in the litter box and the other thinks litter boxes are a great place to dig haha, they do use it for 1s though so I thought I'd check on the piggies potential!