Do guinea pigs need hay racks?

Status
Not open for further replies.
my boars dont like eating hay from the floor so i need to put nice fresh stuff in the rack cause they are just really fussy and spoiled rotten. x
 
I have both hay for bedding and in a hay ball, and to be honest they just eat the bedding and leave the ball. They get fresh hay for bedding everyday.
 
Mine don't have one, i couldn't see the point coz they just ate the hy i put on the floor of their cage and i give them more hay everyday anyway
 
i have 1 in 1 of my piggies hutches and they dont hae an intrest and dnt eat from it so ha jst sits there untouched but i always fill it up anyway.
Anz x
 
my hay goes on the floor or in a rack and fresh stuff gets put in each day, although i do have a hay rack and Boris likes to sit in it! very cute! :smitten:
 
Piggies said:
Why do they need them aswell?
Click to expand...

I think they are very practical for keeping hay clean and fresh. I know piggies will happily eat hay that has been sitting on the bedding, but I do not like the thought of it coming in contact with faeces and urine.

If you use hay in the cage as bedding or as snuggle material, then they will be less likely to eat from the hayrack.
However, if hay in the cage is a nuisance (say you are using vetbed or fleece and it gets stuck everywhere) it is more convenient for the owner to provide fresh hay for eating in the rack, and just not use hay within the cage itself (plenty of other materials can be provided to snuggle into that do not cause the amount of mess that hay does).
 
No

Mine love running and jumping through a big fresh pile of hay, and pretty much eat all of it.

a friend once found a baby hanging by the neck from one of the wire type ones, it had jumped in, fell through but it' head was stuck between the bars.
 
I use to put in the corner and she would eat it but I know she would poop in it prob not pee but still. I built her this a week ago out of a linen cloth and a couple of close pins and she uses it all the time she shoves he nose in there and tries to get the greenest piece of hay. She prob eats more hay because of it now, I think anyways.

the hay is greener then it looks in the picture :)
DSC01839.jpg
 
I wouldn't say they need one as such but I know that if I put it on the floor after a while the hay will be wee'd on and pooped on. Not very nice! Also I feel it gives them something to do - getting it out of the hay rack. I generally put most in the rack and a little on the floor as they love tunnelling through it!
 
I put a thread on here not long back asking the same thing. I was advised to use one because mine live in a hutch so I wasn't too happy about them eating their bedding. They have loved it ever since O0
 
I don't use them either as some of my bigger piggies have managed to get into them and I'm worried sick about accidents happening. The indoor guys have a large litter tray full of hay (rest of the C&C is fleece/vetbed) which is changed daily and the shed piggies have their hay changed daily both in the hutch and also in the litter tray they have in their large C&C run. They also all have a couple of those wire balls you can hang up which I stuff with hay and I also use wc roll tubes cut down the middle and then stuff these with hay/readigrass - makes them work a bit harder for it ;D
 
None of mine have hay racks no more - dont see the point of it really :P
 
Plus one of my boars injured his eye on it not so long ago and i think he may be slightly blind by it - I cant take that one out cause the hay rack is attached to his cage so thats the only one i have to put up with but still dont use it ;D
 
Yes and no. They don't necessarily need a rack, but they need plenty of clean hay. If you put it in their cage floor they could potty on it making it unsuitable to eat. You can put hay on the floor every so often to compensate for this, but that could last all day. A rack is also good because the pigs will get exercise reaching for the hay. I find the best is to have a rack for them so they can get exercise certain times when they eat, and then reward them a certain time or times of the day with hay on the floor of their cage for them to devour. I have a brick in the cage so I sit the hay on that to detour pottying on the hay. I usually put some down at nighttime before bed. It is so cute because they know it is hay on floor time and start running.
 
update, I recently made a c&c cage for my she-ra and I bent one of the grids in half and hung it, i think it works great some fall to the floor and its wide enough if they do jump up there they wont get stuck or anything horrible. She hasn't tried to jump in the hay rack and I don't think she will but if she does she wont get hurt the way its built

DSC01864.jpg

DSC01866.jpg
 
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but what is a c&c cage. Is it just a brand name?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top