Cage bars

[Cavy Tamer]

My guinea pigs and rabbit have both taken a certain fancy to biting the cage bars. Is this OK for them to do? If not, should I somehow try and train them to not do it? What would this training entail?

 

[pennick]

Just make sure you have other chew things for them. Plenty hay, apple wood, cardboard tubes. Biting on the cage occassionaly is normal as long as they dont spend their whole time doing it.

 

[kat_0521]

They're probably testing out the metal and seeing what it is. Guinea pigs are like human babies in that they need to put things in their mouths to learn about them. They could be chewing out of boredom too.
I agree with Pennick-just make sure there is access to hay, cardboard tubes or hidey houses for them to chew on. Or one of those wooden or fiddlesticks hutch.

 

[cavy-cool-crazy]

Mine chew the bars quite a lot too. They have loads and loads of chew things...fiddlestix, hidey houses, piles of hay, wooden chew toys...but they still chew the bars! They don't do it all the time, but they do it fairly often, especially when it's time to let them out for salad!

 

[Sara'spets]

I only have one who chews the bars and it's when she wants her romaine lettuce. As soon as she gets it she doesn't bite the bars again until the next feeding time.

 

[Plummie]

If biting the bars becomes a real problem you could try spraying with bitter apple (not sure how well that would work though).

 

[DocDolittle]

I like the above solution. if they start putting dents in the bars and start shewing off the coating then wipe the bars down with some bitter apple spray. It's all natural and we've used it for all of our chewing pets. However, sometimes you get the occassional stinker who doesn't mind the taste(one of my dogs actually likes it).