Size Is it big enough?

[Tammy]

Hi there.

My dad is building me a custom guinea pig cage as my birthday present. It is being made from pine wood and the smallest available size chicken wire. The dimensions are as follows:

Height: 1.8meters / 6 feet
Length across the front: 96cm / just under 38 inches
Width of the side: 74 cm / just over 29 inches

There are going to be 4 floor levels to the cage, each spaced roughly 35cm / 14 inches apart. There will be ramps leading from one floor to the next at an incline of roughly 30 degrees.

The total floor space of each level comes to 71.1 square centimetres / 94.05 square inches / 7.65 square feet. There will be openings in each floor level (except the bottom floor) for the ramps. The openings will measure roughly 15cm by 15 cm / 6 inches by 6 inches / 36 square inches. This means that the total floor space of each of 3 of the levels will come to 58 square inches or just under 5 square feet.

Added together the floor space across the 4 levels of the cage measures around a total of 2.09 square meters / 22.5 square feet.

I plan on housing 2 female piggies in this cage. Is this cage going to be big enough for them to live in comfortably? I also plan on providing them some floor time daily in a space on our bedroom floor that will measure 3 meters by 1 meter / 118 inches by 39 inches or 32 square feet.

Is this good enough for living conditions for 2 female piggies? I know that one piggy needs a minimum of 7.5 square feet and 2 need a minimum of 10.5 square feet but I'm having last minute jitters. Everything is already set in motion, the cage is being built etcetera so I know it's too late to change much of anything now but I was just wondering whether I will be providing a good enough home for 2 little girls.

I have never owned a guinea pig in my life, I only have experience with dogs, cats, birds, fish and hamsters of which I currently own 4 cats, 4 tropical fish and one hamster. So please...feedback will be much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[pinky]

Adequate space is based on a SINGLE level, not multiple levels. If you look on the home page, it lists the space required for each number of guinea pigs. They need enough space to run laps on one level. The minimum space on a single level for two females is 7.5 square feet although 10.5 per level is the preferred amount of space.

 

[bpatters]

Welcome to the forum! We'd love to see pictures of your pigs!

Since the cage is already being built, it may be too late to alter anything. Fewer levels, and more square feet per level, would be better -- guinea pigs need room to run and popcorn around. But you can probably make it workable for them.

I'd start them out in it by putting food treats on all the ramps and on every level, several times a day, so they get used to going up and down to look for them. That'll help with the exercise. Put a different kind of hidey on each level, and if they seem to like one best, move it to the top level so they'll go up and down more. Put their hay on one level, and feed them their veggies on another, treats on still another. But be sure to keep water bottles on all levels.

Be faithful about the floortime, and make sure they move around while they're there. You may have to get in there with them to help them get used to it, and change things up so they've got something to explore. In fact, if it's safe for them and you put some sort of waterproof cover over the floor, they could spend several hours a day in the floor-time pen.