Cage opinion on coroplast kitchen

[MJ1011]

Hi,

I just want the opinion of those who have the coroplast kitchen from the guinea pig store or something similar. Does it work/make clean up easier? I'm just not sure about having loose bedding in the kitchen area (getting mixed up with food/water dish), and having the pigs eliminate where they eat. Your thoughts? TIA!

Marie

 

[Beatrix187]

I don't have one ( because I know my guinea pig win gonna touch it) but lots of people say it definitely helps with bedding staying clean. And not everywhere.
i pit bedding in one part of my cage where he eats. And I'm not worried about it.

 

[lissie]

and having the pigs eliminate where they eat.

Guinea pigs usually eliminate where they eat.

 

[CavyChrissy]

I've just finished switching from a kitchen area to no kitchen area. Here's what I found to be the pros and cons of a kitchen:

Pros:
-helped keep hay in one area, not spread all over.

Cons:
-did not like poop sitting in the litter/bedding for days (poop was too small to scoop out every day).
-Litter was expensive (I tried Yesterday's News and you have to make the kitchen at least 1.5x2 to be useable and that's a lot of litter/bedding to change every few days).
-Less room to rearrange things in my cage to help keep it interesting for the pigs (note: I have just one big 2x6, no lofts or anything).
-My divider wall was about 4 inches tall and a little flimsy and Snickers kept putting her front paws on it and knocking it around.
-I had to put the food pellet dishes outside the kitchen because when they were in the kitchen the pigs kept knocking litter and poop in to the dishes. Bleck!

So now I am back to one big 2x6 with fleece over wood pellets in the entire thing. I've found it's easier to clean just one type of surface. Also, as a solution to my hay problem, I am working on rigging up a new hay rack using one of those corner litter pans (so hopefully the pan will catch all the small hay pieces that fall out when the pigs pull a long piece of hay from the rack).

If you are unsure, maybe you can rig up a temporary kitchen at one end of your cage to see how you like it. I did it by cutting an extra piece of coroplast as wide as my cage and about 6 inches wide. Then I just duck taped it in the cage to make a 1.5x2 kitchen.

Good luck!

 

[CavyChrissy]

Forgot one more con:

-my pigs still pooped all over the cage, not just in the kitchen area as I had hoped!

 

[dearpokey]

Hi,

I just want the opinion of those who have the coroplast kitchen from the guinea pig store or something similar. Does it work/make clean up easier? I'm just not sure about having loose bedding in the kitchen area (getting mixed up with food/water dish), and having the pigs eliminate where they eat. Your thoughts? TIA!

Marie

I have it and it is much better at keeping the majority of the mess away from the rest of the living space. It is real easy to remove and clean the only issue I have is that the pigs have chewed on it in spots. I line the bottom though not with loose bedding but with a pad of uhaul sewn onto a piece of Alova suede. This wicks nicely and keeps the kitchen dry from their urine. Hay does stick to it pretty good but that is the least of my worries

 

[LifeAsItMayBe]

I have a coroplast kitchen in one of my cages. It works pretty well at keeping hay in one area, yet still I hate it. lol In my other cage I have a fleece pad 1x2 grids in size under the hay rack so I can just pick it up and dump the hay and poop out and it keeps their cage very clean! I wash the kitchen pads twice as often as the fleece in the main part of the cage since the girls pee there a lot. I am planning to make some larger ones (2x2) to replace the coroplast kitchen in the other cage since the pigs in that cage tend to spread more hay farther.

 

[MJ1011]

Thank you everyone for your replies! CavyChrissy I might try your idea about the litter pan under the hay

 

[MJ1011]

Guinea pigs usually eliminate where they eat.

I've owned guinea pigs for about a decade total (none in the last five years though), and the ones I've had usually eliminate everywhere. I have always used aspen bedding or fleece bedding in the past, so curious about having a separate kitchen if this would work.

 

[lissie]

I've owned guinea pigs for about a decade total (none in the last five years though), and the ones I've had usually eliminate everywhere. I have always used aspen bedding or fleece bedding in the past, so curious about having a separate kitchen if this would work.

I've found that if I don't have a kitchen area, they poop everywhere. Now I'm using suedecloth fabric over wood pellets, and they poop all over the cage. Same as when I use fleece in the whole cage. I'm not sure if it's because I have pellets dishes all over the place.

When I had a kitchen area, they will mostly poop in the kitchen and where they sleep. I think my pigs were just too lazy to move around, so they poop mostly where they are. And if there's a kitchen where all food, hay and water are, they spent most of their time in there. The kitchen was just there to catch the mess.

 

[sallyvh]

I have homemade coroplast kitchens in both of my cages and I love them. I use sewn fleece/uhaul liners in the entire cage and at one end I have the kitchen with aspen shavings. I used to use yesterday's news but it jumped in price ($12 a bag to $20 a bag) I really liked it but the cost became too much.

My kitchens work well though, I have their water bottles in there, the pellet dish and I just put big hay piles in there as well. The kitchen contains the mess pretty well, I still do a daily sweep because they poop everywhere but I find they pee the most in the kitchen.

 

[GuineaPigMania2]

I have a 2x5 with a 1x2 loft I use as a kitchen. The liners at the moment are not working in the kitchen (they do in the main level) so I'm covering the liners with strips of fleece and a fleece pad I made with webbing. This soaks up the wee at the moment but I think I'm going to also get a litter tray kinda thing to put their C*C hay rack in. The tray will be lined with newspaper and hay. Then the other half of the loft I'm going to use the fleece pad I made (which does soak up) So my loft will end up half tray, half fleece.

They kick a lot of hay and poop down the ramp and into the main area a lot though, which is annoying because apart from that, the bottom is usually clean. I think 1x2 is a tad small for a water bottle, pellet dish, and a big C&C hay rack for two guinea pigs, especially now that I want a new bottle and bowl so they have one each.

I do a spot clean in the morning, evening and if its bad, midday as well. This usally keeps it clean. However they do poo more near there food and some find there way into the food bowl.... however I knew this was gonna happen.

I wouldn't use free bedding like hay unless you can contain it within the kitchen as they kick it everywhere (and its more expensive) I have a second floor loft as a kitchen area, so its handmade, but is basically juts like the ones from this store, only on a second level.

Hope I've explained OK,

 

[pinky]

All 3 of my cages have fleece on one side and unscented Fresh News for Cats on the other side. Each cage has a bit more than half the cage with fleece. I have two 2x5s and a 2x4. I originally had an inch lip on the tray that separated both sections but I flattened it once I found that very little bedding gets carried on the fleece side and that it doesn't stick to the fleece. All of them poop more on the bedding side. In the 2x5s I have pigloos on the fleece side with a single layer of fleece under the pigloos so I can easily shake out any droppings. In the 2x4, the pigloo is on the bedding side. I rarely have to even replace the fleece in that cage because she only poops on the bedding. I use less than half the regular bedding that I would. I've found that sections of the bedding side are always clean and dry so I can actually reuse about half the bedding each time I clean cages and there's less fleece to wash. This has been the best bedding solution I've found for my cages.

 

[MJ1011]

If anyone is interested, I found this on Amazon (Tierra Garden GP48B Tidy Potting Tray, Black), and have been using it as my kitchen. It is a good size (best one I've seen so far for a 2x4 C &C) and low enough so that the piggies can still get in/out easily. It's been working well so far.

 

[PiggleLove2013]

I never used a coroplast box, but I did have litter in my kitchen area when I had fleece and thought it was pretty nice. Not too hard to clean off of the fleece and keeps the hay off too. I don't notice that they poop any more or less in the litter box. My pigs are complete cage destroyers so I didn't like how they kicked all the litter out (you'll have to sweep/vaccum everyday if yours are the same) but I think a kitchen area has more pros than cons, in my experience at least.

 

[SavvyCavies]

Like many have echoed above, my piggies continue to eliminate anywhere the please (my little cage destroyers, lol) in their cage even with having a 1x2 cavy café kitchen. I do like the fact that I able to separate most of their food (minus fresh veggies that I typically hang on a dangling kabob/veggie basket thing) from the rest of their living area. Keeping the hay contained is a perk too.

 

[jrv4babies]

@SavvyCavies it looks like you have some type of small green ramp there? what is that? And how does it stay there?

 

[SavvyCavies]

@SavvyCavies it looks like you have some type of small green ramp there? what is that? And how does it stay there?

Hi! Sorry for the super late reply! It's been a good while since I've last been on! That small green ramp was just a toy and meant to be permanently stationed there. I would sometimes put veggies on top of it for the girls.

 

[SavvyCavies]

And not* meant to be... @jrv4babies