Hello from Ontario...new here.. and new to being an owner guinea pigs too.

[courticemommy]

Hello, my name is Karen. I am a married stay at home mom with 4 child located about an hour outside of Toronto,Ontario, Canada. Six months ago my children and I decided to purchase our first baby guinea pig. Last week we adopted a 2nd guinea pig. Now this week my friend is selling her guinea pig and we are thinking of giving him a home too.

Our first two guinea pigs are Patches who is 6 months old and Charlie Brown that is about 1.5 years old. We do not have the 3rd one as of yet... but he is abut a year old.

I do have a few questions for you experiened owners...

1. Can male guinea pigs live well together in one cage... all 3 are male in different cages right now.. but we have a large cage for one of then that I want to clean out big time and have all 3 live in down the road.
2. If quesion 1 would work having 3 together.. how does on introduce them together so that they will become friend and can live with each other?
3. I have seen some people taking about fleece as a bed... how does one go about using it instead of wood shavings like we are now. I never head of this before.. but it looks interesting.. saving me going out all the time to get shavings for bedding. Would like some more information on this please. Thank you

I look forward to chatting with you all here at the site... getting to know you all better, learning more about to care for our guinea pigs better and meeting all your pets too.

Karen (nickname: courticemommy)

 

[foggycreekcavy]

Hello! I will try to answer your questions.

1. Yes, they can, but the cage needs to be pretty big. I am betting that their cages are pet store type cages, and they are really too small for a pig. Take a look at the cage size standards on the front page of this site Guinea Pig Cages, Your Cavy At Home --you will see that for three pigs to live comfortably together you'll need 13 square feet. You won't be able to buy one that size, but you can easily build one following the directions.

2. There are very good tips on introducing at Guinea Pig Education, Care, Rescue and Adoption at Cavy Spirit in the Social Life section.

3. Take a look bedding section of this site.

Welcome!

 

[Raisintosser]

Hello welcome! I live an hour away from Toronto too in Hamilton. If you need help with where to find supplies just ask!

The fleece is a great idea. I buy misc towel ends from Oxford mills outlets to use under the fleece and get new ones every few years when they dont clean up as nice anymore or get holes in them. It's less expensive in the long run than chips, cleaner and the pigs love it! I bought a little hand vacuum just for their cage to suck out the poops every day.

 

[courticemommy]

Question... ( got a million questions as I am in the process of introducing our 2nd guinea pig to the first... and in the process of switching the bedding material so it is a change for both of them when I finally place them to be housed in the same cage.

Is there any special type of fleece needed to use and where can you find it (I am just east of Toronto in Durham region)
So you just place the fleece on top of the towels ?
Or do you need to make a slip cover for the cage?
How many would you recommend to start off with?

Sorry for so many questions... just new to the site and the world of guinea pigs.. this fleece this is new to me... so thus asking lots of question about it. Thank you for the help.

 

[courticemommy]

These are our two guys... above.. Charlie Brown is our new addition this week (age 1.5 years old) and below is Patches (age 6 months that we have had since he was a baby)

 

[suzilovespiggie]

Welcome to the forum and the world of guinea pigs.
If you go to the bedding section on the main page of the forum, you will find all you need on fleece. Or you can go to the search engine and type in fleece and all the posts (there are many) about fleece should appear. In on of the threads is directions on making fleece slip covers.

P.S. Adorable boys.!!

 

[kendalm7]

i have fleece bedding it last 18 to 24 months made by piggybedspreads.com its such great quality and dosnt smell or anythging i was very impressed with piggybedspreads and guinea pigs love it and its cheap for how long it lasts! and theres so many cute patters she can make for you! my piggy loves it so much! pop corns and runs and sweaks over it!

 

[courticemommy]

So it is any kind of fleece that is okay ??? Thinking I have a bunch of old fleece blackets from when my kids were babies... maybe I could us them... would that work ????

 

[Raisintosser]

I bought fleece by the meter at a fabric store when I first changed over, then I bought fleece blankets from walmart cheap. I didn't gradually change over their bedding I just did it one day and they loved it! Popcorning all over the place because it was soft and warm. I put about 4 towels in the bottom section of my C&c cage (4x2) and then put the sheet up and over the sides of the coroplast and tuck it between the coroplast and the cage if that makes sense. Otherwise the pigs get under the sheet and hide and poop between the fleece and the towels. The fleece wicks away the urine and it soaks into the towels keeping the fleece dry. If it's new fleece wash it before you use it to get rid of the sizing chemicals on the material. This will help the urine to go through the fleece rather than sitting on top.
The old fleece blankets you have would work fine. I get lighter colored towels so I can bleach them if I need to and not have to worry that it will bleed colours in the washing machine.

 

[courticemommy]

Thanks for the information... thinking it is time to bring the sew manchine out and use my old fleece blankets that the kids no longer use and make a slip cover myself. I want to add the new system when I switch them over. We are slowly introducing them to each other.. when we do the final switch and place them in a cage together instead of them doing floor time together .. what is when I want to do the switch to new bedding. It will be new to both of them. Also have lots of older towels so we can us them for the bottom layer.

Another question.. you talk about popcorning.. is that what you call when the are bouncing all over the place (new to the world of G.P's... so not sure what popcornign means)

 

[Trega]

Yes, popcorning is when they jump around in a spaz-like fashion lol. They do it when they are really happy about something often times. Welcome to the forum! Hooray for Canadians

 

[sfrangu]

Thanks Trega, now I know a new term from the piggies dictionary (or pigtionary?).
Interesting fact: I live in Ontario, CAlifornia. That's why read this thread, being written by somebody from Ontario, CAnada.