Want a Guinea Pig(s) Checklist for bringing home 2 guinea pigs

[bungar]

Hi everyone,

I am new here and are preparing to bring home 2 guinea pigs next month. I'm making a checklist of everything I need to have ready. Your experienced input would be super helpful!

Here is my checklist:

Cage - I am going with the wire cubes and coroplast. 2x5.
Bedding - Fleece + liners
2 stoneware food bowls - 1 for pellets and 1 for veggies, right?
water bottle
willow twig hideaway
kaytee cuddle cup
timothy hay + a wire hay rack
care fresh bedding for kitchen
cavy kitchen suite - sooo cute
pellets - any brand recommendations?
carrier - any recommendations?
handheld brush + dust pan
hand vac??

Am I missing anything??

Thanks everyone!

 

[ZebraKisses]

Hi!
First off i reccomend always getting the Oxbow brand, it is natural and super safe for piggies! Definitely get Oxbow pellets, hay, treats, and anything else you can think of. I have fleece hideaways and tunnels that i got from the guinea pig cages fleece store, but they are expensive and would slowly work on adding them to your cage. (My 4 little ones love their fleece hideys and tunnel!).
Have you already gotten the kitchen for the bedding? I used to have one, and my piggies got the bedding everywhere! It was so annoying to clean up because the bedding stuck to the fleece, but thats just me. Instead,(i have a loft area) i got rid of my kitchen. I put my food area up in my loft, and its so much easier because all i have to do is take the fleece, roll it up, and shake it over the garbage to get the poos off! Then i just put the fleece back in. I recommend doing that instead, its less expensive in the long run, but thats just me.
Definitely get a hand vacuum! Also get some safe chew toys (guinea pig cages store sells some) or, get Oxbow chew toys. I dont think ive met a piggy yet who doesnt like apple chews! Mine love them, your soon to be might too!
For me, my piggies didnt really like the idea of sharing their veggies out of a bowl. So, i just use a plate whenever i cant hand feed them, so its a more natural position (guinea pigs are grazers, so they like to eat off the ground.)
Thats really much it for essential items. For my pigs, i have little "treat" hays from Oxbow that i give them once in a while, and they love it! My hay recommendations to try (if you decide to do this) is the Oat Hay, and the Botanical Hay. My piggies love those! I know there are more, i just can't remember. For your timothy hay, i suggest getting the Western Timothy Hay from Oxbow! There are tons of little hay seeds in there and my piggies LOVE them to death! Its like an all time treat for them!
I hope this was helpful.
Thanks

 

[CupcakeCavy]

I would check out etsy stores because they have tons of great piggy items including well priced high quality fleece items!

 

[jaycriae]

It's generally a good idea to get 2 hideys, water bottles, and food bowls, so that they don't ever have a reason to fight over them, and also if they run out of water in one bottle they'll still have some left and won't have to wait for you to notice it.

Make sure the hideys you get are open and/or have two exits so nobody traps each other.

Oxbow is a good brand for pellets and treats, but their Timothy hay itself is unnecessarily expensive, it's much cheaper to order KMS or SPS brand Timothy hay online in bulk or to find somewhere local that produces hay.

You can buy Oxbow treats if you want, most of them are fine to feed once a week or so, but most pigs tend to prefer produce as their treats. A bit of extra veggie or bite of fruit they don't usually get will make them at least as happy as a treat from a pet store.


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[Novabean]

Even though I am newish to piggies, I recommend KMS Hayloft hay. In the long run the bulk is SO much cheaper! I bought only a 5lb bag of Timothy & Bluegrass and both will last me months & I believe it was only $8 each. The pellets are great also. Only downfall is the shipping, depending how far away you are from Washington state. I live across the country in Wisconsin so shipping for me was literally just as much as the total cost of my items! I plan on being a steady customer of theirs for years to come !

Don't get me wrong, Oxbow is good also but for the price of bag after bag it just made since. I still buy a bag of the Oxbow Orchard grass for them as a treat (meaning every couple days they get some not a regular staple).

Best thing is to some research on forums like this and just the web in general. This is the 3rd hay brand I've tried. You need to figure out what works economically for you but most importantly what your piggies like (ie. 2nd kind they didn't like at all so I donated it to a shelter).

Sorry didn't mean to rant about KMS n hay in general lol.

Fresh is the BEST rule to follow for treats - Veggies & Fruits

Congrats on getting your new piggie babies!!!



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[bungar]

Thank you so much!! I appreciate all of the advice. I have a few things to consider now. =)

 

[Comely Guineas]

Something to wipe down the coroplast when you do cage cleanings, I use half vinegar half water in a spray bottle and a rag.

 

[2cocos]

I think your list is great! We have the same size cage for our two girls and they can run around in it, which I love. I bought discounted fleece at the fabric store and we used washable bed pads underneath that we got on Amazon. A twin bed sized fits almost perfectly in a 2x5 cage. They were $20 each but I feel like they are worth it. They will last a long time, and they are waterproof. The last time we got fleece I got 100 inches so that I could fold over the ends (essentially, 4 layers of fleece on each end) and it turned out to be a great idea. Really helps with absorbing the urine in the corners of the cage, reducing stains on the bed pads, and make a "fluffier" foundation at one end where we place their main hidey (and where they also like to urinate).

I know everyone is different, but I personally wasted a lot of money on hay racks. Maybe I never really found the right one, but they much prefer just eating hay off the ground. Just so much easier for them to access. I leave a pile in the middle of one end of the cage beside their pellet bowl, clear of the corners where they poop (they will poop a lot where they eat). Same as their veggies. They will eat most of them as soon as we put them into the cage. We just put them in the middle of the cage on the fleece. The poops are usually in the corners anyhow!

You could still incorporate a kitchen area on one side put just put a small fleece blanket and pad in there, that you can change every day or every other day. That's where ours urinate the most (by the food) so it could help you cut back on laundry.

We have one big wooden hidey that they can share, and one of those log tunnels. I like the tunnel since they run through it when they are in "active" mode, and it does not obstruct their fun like another hidey would. They use it as a hidey when they are wanting to be separate. Ours outgrew the medium within a few months, so I would recommend the large size. I tend to like natural wood products since they chew them and their digestive system can deal with the wood. I tend to think it's better for their teeth than plastic.

We LOVE the Kaytee cuddle cups. They are great for lap time, and are pretty waterproof if there is ever an accident. They are also quite large, so plenty of room to move about, if we decide to feed them some veggies while they are in there. We just got a spare yesterday, and will probably be getting another so that we can rotate when they are in the laundry.

Have fun with your new piggies! Sounds like you are doing a great job getting ready for them.