The guinea pigs try paper bedding
Like 2 Dislike 0 Published on 7 Dec 2019
The guinea pig herd is switching from fleece to paper bedding! We got them soft paper bedding from Small Pet Select. Now that they're next to a window with sunlight and running around on bedding, they look like natural little critters that just happen to live in cardboard box homes!
The switch from fleece to bedding was mainly driven by moving to a new apartment. For a variety of reasons, the new place is not ideal for the laundry in the sink technique we used to use:
https://youtu.be/mBgeZD1QZ8s
Additionally, our fleece wasn't always wicking so sometimes the pee would pool on top and the guinea pigs would get wet butts. So we were going to need to buy new fleece anyway.
The pigs like the bedding. We added a layer an inch or two deep and it has compressed into a nice absorbent mat. Once a day we dig out the wet spots and replace them with fresh bedding. We'll see how long it lasts before needing a full cleaning. We'll definitely have more free time to make videos! But it will also be a lot more expensive. It took half of a jumbo 178 liter bag to fill our cage. We looked into pine bedding too but it didn't seem to be much cheaper.
THE PIGS HAVE AN AMAZON STORE!
https://www.amazon.com/shop/itspigs
As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.
THE PIGS HAVE A TEESPRING STORE!
https://teespring.com/stores/itspigs
WHAT’S PIGS?
We publish daily highlights of the adorable antics of our guinea pig herd. Subscribe to see what they do tomorrow!
In June 2019 we adopted five pigs from Los Angeles Guinea Pig Rescue. They are cute herbivorous pets with funny social interactions. We film all their behaviors, from cute guinea pig noises to eating sounds, playing with their food to sleeping with their eyes open, and occasional fighting. So far they have been most popular for their loud wheeking and rumblestrutting and their ridiculous guinea pig fights!
MEET THE PIG FAMILY
Spaghett is the boar of the herd. The rest of the pigs are females, but he’s a neutered male so they won’t be breeding. Sorry, no pregnant or baby guinea pigs! Spaghett has orange-brown fur with a white crest on his head and cute red eyes. He goes on morning romps with entertaining popcorning and zoomies. He does hilarious rumblestrutting for the ladies while purring. He likes burrowing through hay and standing on his back feet like a goofy dinosaur. He enjoys petting, especially scratching behind the ears.
Acorn is the youngest. She has white, black, and gold fur with a cute mousy face. She’s inquisitive, always wants food, and talks to herself while exploring hay piles. Little Acorn’s special talent is jumping on houses to go on rooftop adventures.
Butternut appears either confused or deep in thought. She has white and gold fur. Her hobbies include sleeping and yawning while flopped over with her feet sprawled out. She continues wheeking, squeaking, and squealing at us after we have already given her food.
Pumpkin has black fur except for white back toes. She looks like a cow, a non-guinea pig, and a rabbit. She has noisy standoffs with Acorn when Acorn gets feisty.
Zucchin is the oldest and grumpiest. She has white and gray fur with cute red eyes. At first Zucchin fought with Spaghett. There were teeth chattering, nose raising, and hair puffing battles. Now they get along, but Zucchin is still a grouch to the others. Her main hobby is being an eel and lunging at anyone who comes near. She likes to chase other pigs out of their homes, then follow them to another home and chase them out of that one too. But she looks like a cute rat!
THEIR HOME
The pigs live in a custom 4 by 6 foot cage made by merging 3 MidWest Guinea Habitat cages. We cut the seams of the cage bottoms and joined them into one large cage liner. Now we have a MidWest cage of triple the size! The pigs first lived in the 3 cages connected by ramps with DIY ramp covers we made by sewing blankets.
The bedding is fleece blankets with towels underneath and newspaper on the bottom. Each day we change one third of the bedding and spot clean several times. Their cage is on cheap folding tables so we can easily interact with the pigs.
The pigs prefer free stuff to actual guinea pig toys. They love to hide under packing paper. A DIY guinea pig house made from a cardboard box is a favorite hidey. They are not interested in most chew toys.
THEIR DIET
Their favorite hay is 3rd cutting timothy hay from Small Pet Select. They nibble hay cubes. But they get most excited about fresh grass. They gobble up guinea pig pellets.
They eat nearly any vegetable. The only thing rejected so far was zucchini. Their favorites are parsley, kale, collard greens, kohlrabi, carrot tops and roots, beets, bell peppers, corn with the husk, cucumbers, and pumpkin. They go wild for homemade wheatgrass sprouts.
THEIR CINEMATOGRAPHY
The pigs are filmed with the latest GoPro Hero 8 Black in 4K. Their videos are edited in iMovie. We use free music from the YouTube audio library.