Hoovering Around Guinea Pigs?

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Mhairi

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Is it ok to hoover around guinea pigs? Their hay and wood shavings are constantly spilling all over the carpet and it's starting to annoy me! Or do you think it would stress them out too much? Am I better moving them to another room before I hoover?
 
i have to say, mine just hide when they hear the dyson but i always start it going in another room so they kind of hear it before it comes closer to them.. best time to hoover in our house is when they are eating !
 
I Hoover by mine, they normally run into their hiding places then stick their heads out to see what causing the noise
 
When mine were new I started hoovering in another room and gradually moved nearer to the cage, but now they don't take any notice if I start right next to them.
 
I have to hoover around mine, we'd have a haystack up the ceiling by now if I didn't :) They don't mind the sound at all...at that point they've either just been fed and busy tucking in or they know food is about to come and hanging around waiting for it.
 
:agr:
I always start in another room so then it's not a massive shock. I try to brush up any hay etc to minimise the hoovering round their cage.
 
Like @Julie M, mine generally associate hoovering with cage cleaning and therefore fresh hay/pellets/veggies, so they popcorn around their cage like crazy! I can imagine as long as you didn't start the hoover up right next to them it'll be fine.
 
Ours have got used to the hoover, they dont really run off now at all. One of our piggies used to Wheek when hoover started as they associated it with returning to the cage after a clean and veggies :) You could hear her over the top of it
 
I use my dustbuster around them,when cleaning cage,they just ignore it now ! Freya is so used to it ,she refuses to move when i need to remove poops near her ! little and often approach gets piggies acustomed to the noise .:)
 
It is a matter of getting them used to the sounds of the hoover. If you do it regularly, then it is not going to be a problem and won't scare them. ;)
 
Agree about the regularly thing.

If you're particularly worried or have an ill one for whom any additional stress would be bad, you can get pet desensitisation recordings with vacuum cleaner and other similar noises on - one stars off playing them quieter than normal and then increase volume over time. You could probably also find something similar on youtube.
 
Our boys have put up with bathroom works, hoovering, and once the windows were wide open and some terrible work noise was going on, I felt so bad! They are resilient little furballs, try not to worry. @acapae has a good idea with the desensitisation. See if your piggies are scared by it, some are, some aren't.
 
I always start off in another room too. I hoover every second day so they are probably used it now. They are in the dining room which is all tiles as its pretty much the same room as the kitchen. I will generally sweep any hay mess that i make dishing out their hay everynight so it doesnt clog up the vaccum and I dont drag hay all through the house.
 
Oreo just couldn't care less about it lol :). He will just sit there because he's lazy.

He used to be terrified of it, when he was a little baby pig.
 
The GPM piggies are penned on the floor and they are accustomed to the hoover so much that they ignore it.
 
One of our piggies is a bit of a biter, so don't want to stress her out more in case that's the reason for her biting. But the hay and wood shavings all over the house are driving me insane! Hopefully they would get used to it over time. Thanks for the advice!
 
I hoover the floor of my shed piggies every few weeks and they don't seem to really care anymore. They mostly just run away and hide at first, then they poke their heads out to see what's going on. My Rory used to sleep through it.
 
I use the handheld Dyson to clean up hay cookie mess...and the piggies hide until the noise has gone.

Boy, those cookies cause a mess! But the piggies adore them...
 
I think my piggies must be a rare breed - they don't care about the hoover whatsoever. I can hoover when they are having floor time (they are in a run, don't want to accidentaly hoover up a pig lol!) and they just sit and eat lol. They didnt like it much at first but I think I hoover so much that they aren't bothered anymore.
 
Mines dont bother with the hoover either. I'm also driven made with the wood shavings. I have some cage liners on order :-)
 
helloitsbecca said:
I can hoover when they are having floor time (they are in a run, don't want to accidentaly hoover up a pig lol!)
Click to expand...
Had a vision of a piggy getting hoovered and an ungainly fat bottom wriggling at the end of the pipe :))
 
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