Lets go shopping!

Habitat

• A smooth bottom cage, no wire floors. The bigger the better. You will need at least 24" x 24" per guinea pig. 

Try a coraplast cage...and get more bang for your buck with a little elbow grease. Don't try to modify a rabbit cage by cutting the bottom out. The tray will be to shallow for the bedding and unless you want to live with a vacuum in hand...then get the proper cage right off the bat and be happy from the start. Dog crates, rabbit cages, home made cages of chicken wire, and wood are sad, sad, sad housing...

Other cage necessities: 

• 1~32 ounce water bottle

• 1 ~non-tip food bowl, ceramic

• Hidey house or pigloo

Bedding

• Aspen - 9 cu feet bags are most economical

• Kiln dried pine - never use pine that has not been kiln dried

Wood base beddings last longer then paper, but paper based bedding are excellent if you have allergies. 

• Carefresh - recycled newspaper bedding

• Eco-Bedding

Beddings not to use - Cedar, pine that hasn't been dried. Walnut shells, corn cob, and pelted pine. The pelted pine bedding is proving to be to hard on guinea pigs feet causing bumble foot. Newspaper while very cheap is very labor intensive and unless you just want to change their cage every day...avoid it. Paper UNDER the wood bedding is great. It can make cleaning a breeze. Cleaning day, just roll the bedding up in the paper and deposit it in the trash. 

More on Bedding 

Hay

• Timothy Hay - guinea pigs must have fresh hay available at all times. It  stimulates their digestion and keeping thing moving from front to back is very important in a guinea pig.

• Alfalfa Hay - only for pigs under 6 months or pregnant or nursing mothers. Alfalfa is to high in calcium to be feed on a regular bases.

• Timothy cubes or Alfalfa cubes of compressed hay.

Pellets

• Pellets - preferably timothy hay based.  We prefer Oxbow Cavy Cuisine. 

• PETsMART sells Nutriphase which is a great pellet if you have to purchase a pet from a pet store.

• Never feed rabbit or hamster pellets or pellets with seeds or colorful bits. A good basic pellet is all that piggy needs. The other stuff is like feeding your guinea pig potato chips...they love it but it is not good for them. 

What Not to Buy

• Plastic Tray Liners
• Mineral licks, they are great for rabbits, not for guinea pigs. 
• Wood block chews, gnaw bones or wood blocks. Guinea pigs like to chew what they can eat. They do not have a great capacity to spit things out and chewing these items...well...
• Hay racks
• Carrot racks
• Exercise wheels and balls - these are very bad for guinea pig's backs.

Good Toys

• Paper bags

• Small paper bags stuffed with hay or veggies

• Toilet paper or paper towel tubes - these can be stuffed with hay or treats. Be sure they do not have a lot of glue left on them.

• Cardboard boxes with guinea pig size holes cut in them. The less color they have on the box the better. Avoid soda boxes.

• Oatmeal containers, remove the plastic ring around the top

• Mirrors, or bells. 

• Small stuffed animals, be sure that they do not have small button eyes that might get chewed off and stuck in piggies throat. 

• Cavy cozies