How To Make Piggies Want To Spend Time In Hayloft?

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Danielle Smith

Danielle Smith

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I've recently added a 2x2 hayloft onto my C&C cage, and the pigs figured out how to use the ramp quite quickly. I originally had a couple of litter trays filled with meadow hay, a (high up) hay ball with timothy, and one of their food bowls up there, but they only went up for the pellets/veg and didn't enjoy lying in the hay like they usually did when it was on the ground floor.

I've since changed things up and added in a massive potting tray and filled it with hay so they could enjoy burrowing like they do when I leave a big pile of loose hay on the floor -- this meant I moved both food bowls to the ground floor. No dice, they don't seem to like the potting tray at all and have hardly been up there in days! Instead they are mostly sleeping in the shadow created by the hayloft and it's getting pretty messy.

Eventually I'd like to make the hayloft act as a kitchen, so all of their pellets, veg, and most of their hay is up there, but I need to get them enjoying the hayloft first! Has anyone got any tips on how to encourage it's use? So far I've tried partially covering the hayloft but it doesn't seem to do much for them. They aren't being deprived of hay, they have a rack of timothy on the ground floor which is half-emptied overnight!
 
could you shade the top of the hayloft - maybe if they feel more enclosed they will stay up there more? I always had the hay in a tray on the main ground level and the piggies would spend loads of time in there whilst containing the main pee! How about putting the tray there and once they suss out move it to the upper level? Good Luck! :cool:
 
i had something like this but my piggies wont go down to the bottom thing. So i got some grass and carrots and treats and there veg they like and i put it down the ladder so maybe you could put there treats and veg in a patton so they will follow it and then put the left treats in the hay and some dangley toys:flag:
sorry for bad spelling ahving one of those off days
 
Our pigs have been in a 2 level hutch from the start, and whilst tow of them very quickly stated using the ramp a lot, one didn't.
It has taken about 3 weeks, and now they all use the ramp and both levels pretty much equally, so I would say that sometimes it just takes time.
Oh and fresh grass - that seems to lure my crew just about anywhere!
 
Swissgreys said:
Our pigs have been in a 2 level hutch from the start, and whilst tow of them very quickly stated using the ramp a lot, one didn't.
It has taken about 3 weeks, and now they all use the ramp and both levels pretty much equally, so I would say that sometimes it just takes time.
Oh and fresh grass - that seems to lure my crew just about anywhere!
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yup same
 
Dindypig said:
All our lofts have a newspaper floor liner of 4+ sheets thick and 4 to 6 inches of hay in the whole loft. There are no extras or trays, just hay. The photo below is prior to cleaning.
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thats alot og piggied and probly alot of mess xD
xhugs to you and your piggiesx :hug:
 
@Dindypig , how often do you change out all of that hay? I currently have less hay space (but pile it equally high) and change it twice a day so there is a lot of waste. I want to create more hay filled space but a bit anxious about the cost.

(Need to work out how best to do it too, I agreed that I would never use ramps when I adopted my pigs due to a historic leg fracture in one of them, so a loft is out of the question)
 
Lovely setup @Dindypig -- I'm also keen to know how often you change out your hay. For those that use it in their hayloft, litter too, as I've just filled the loft with half a bag of Back2Nature and just put the hay directly in there (though the potting tray is great for floortime). I can see why people move to fleece, it's a lot cheaper than bedding substrate!

I left a hay rack on the ground floor but moved all their food to the hayloft as well as two giant handfuls of hay... they seem to be a little more willing to spend time in there now, though no sleeping in the hay pile yet! At floortime yesterday I spread their food around the run and put some inside the hay. They absolutely loved it, running around, burrowing, and generally being a lot more active than they usually are in their cage. Forage-feeding isn't really something I've seen done in guinea pigs :hmm:...

@Tigermoth, have you got any space under a couch or similar you could create a hay area in? I've seen someone make a hay box out of a tub, put it in a otherwise inaccessible place, and connect it to the main cage using a tube. Means they have a hidey, but you don't have to extend like with a regular kitchen in a single-level C&C cage.

IMG_20160407_213123.webp
 
i have outdoor piggies but i put fresh hay in nealy every day and if there is a part that has loads of poops on i just clean that part xx
 
@Danielle Smith, not really, no. They have as much space as we are able to give over in there, they have a 2x4 grid C&C. It's next to a sofa but unfortunately it isn't on legs so we can't push it under or that would have been a brilliant idea. What I want is to be able to give them a bigger area to play in the hay (they do pee in it but it doesn't seem to bother them, so I am trying not to let it bother me!) and so I am considering giving over 1x2 of the existing floor space to a big hay tray. Currently they have a couple of smaller trays that take up similar room but in a way that makes it seem small to them in comparison to the footprint it uses. I love the fleece from the economy side of things, but I want to be able to maximise natural behaviour and giving them a bigger space to dig about in.
 
@Tigermoth I clean out the pens twice a week, bedding and hayloft. I top up the hay if it gets really low or to flat and soiled. I also use large twisty balls with hay in too, for when the little buggers are too lazy to go upstairs.. You can see in the photos that they are about empty just before cleanup time. The ramps have bannisters on them and carpet tile for grip to avoid accidents. I should imagine that a historic leg fracture would be sufficiently healed by now to be able to go up and down a ramp.
You could try a folded C&C grid to provide extra hay if twisty balls and or ramps are not an option.
111028+C%2526C+fleece+guinea+pig+cage+setup+eating+vertical+hay+rack.jpg

hay_rack2.jpg

Hay5.jpg


I have just notice your previous post written while I was doing this one, Giving up a 2x1 end for a ground floor hay 'loft is a sound idea.
 
awh on the last pic it looks like your piggie has big ears awh thats so cute xx i dont mean it in the bad way thou:D
xhugs to you and your piggiesx :hug:
 
That's interesting @Dindypig , thanks. I have given them hay in a bent C&C before but they weren't that fussed by it. They like to eat it from a toilet roll tube and they like to sit in it in a tray. The sitting in it is what I like to see. I have some spare correx that i might play with and see if I can create them something and try it and then worry less about the changing. Like I say, I change the whole lot out twice a day, which gets through the hay a bit!

You have very gorgeous piggies though, look at them!
 
Tigermoth said:
@Danielle Smith, not really, no. They have as much space as we are able to give over in there, they have a 2x4 grid C&C. It's next to a sofa but unfortunately it isn't on legs so we can't push it under or that would have been a brilliant idea. What I want is to be able to give them a bigger area to play in the hay (they do pee in it but it doesn't seem to bother them, so I am trying not to let it bother me!) and so I am considering giving over 1x2 of the existing floor space to a big hay tray. Currently they have a couple of smaller trays that take up similar room but in a way that makes it seem small to them in comparison to the footprint it uses. I love the fleece from the economy side of things, but I want to be able to maximise natural behaviour and giving them a bigger space to dig about in.
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Got you. I think a 1x2 area for hay sounds like a great idea then. What about making a hay area from a storage box with an entryway cut in? You can get it in a size that suits you, it will contain quite high piles of hay, and it's very easy to clean. There's a really good video on Youtube about this. Alternatively, you could just make a higher-sided coroplast insert (EDIT: like you already said, oops!).
 
Oooops, the piggies aren't mine, they are just examples of hay racks off the net. I get my hay by the bale at £4 a bale from a farm. Check out your local horse feed supplier for farms that sell bales of hay. I keep my bale in a wheelie bin.
 
Dindypig said:
Oooops, the piggies aren't mine, they are just examples of hay racks off the net. I get my hay by the bale at £4 a bale from a farm. Check out your local horse feed supplier for farms that sell bales of hay. I keep my bale in a wheelie bin.
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Ah, you see my current supplier does this... Buying Hay Is So Expensive... An arrangement I pretend not to like ;)

I do need to investigate the bale option, once the garage is cleared out (hopefully next week so we can do a car boot sale etc and get it empty) then I might be able to accommodate a bale. I live in horse central (literally there are brown signs everywhere telling me it is the horse capital of the universe or something) so should easily be able to get it.

A follow up question for you though, how do you reach the hay at the bottom of the wheely bin?
 
Tigermoth said:
A follow up question for you though, how do you reach the hay at the bottom of the wheely bin?
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This is where small children come in handy ;). Wish we had (a) the suppliers in West Cumbria, which has a lot of farmland but no farmers selling hay, and (b) the space for a bale in our small terraced house. £6 for 2.5 kg of vaguely green-ish meadow hay off Zooplus, and £2 for "eh"-rated timothy from B&M :no:.
 
Danielle Smith said:
This is where small children come in handy ;). Wish we had (a) the suppliers in West Cumbria, which has a lot of farmland but no farmers selling hay, and (b) the space for a bale in our small terraced house. £6 for 2.5 kg of vaguely green-ish meadow hay off Zooplus, and £2 for "eh"-rated timothy from B&M :no:.
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I discovered my youngest knew how to swear like a navvy when I dropped him in our wheelie bin once, lol. That sounds like expensive hay though! I don't know how much our bag weighs, but we get the large bag (just put it on the bathroom scales, 3.5kg) of Deans Farm and pay £3.80 for it. We buy it from the local garden centre but I've seen it sold online too.
 
Danielle Smith said:
Lovely setup @Dindypig -- I'm also keen to know how often you change out your hay. For those that use it in their hayloft, litter too, as I've just filled the loft with half a bag of Back2Nature and just put the hay directly in there (though the potting tray is great for floortime). I can see why people move to fleece, it's a lot cheaper than bedding substrate!

I left a hay rack on the ground floor but moved all their food to the hayloft as well as two giant handfuls of hay... they seem to be a little more willing to spend time in there now, though no sleeping in the hay pile yet! At floortime yesterday I spread their food around the run and put some inside the hay. They absolutely loved it, running around, burrowing, and generally being a lot more active than they usually are in their cage. Forage-feeding isn't really something I've seen done in guinea pigs :hmm:...

@Tigermoth, have you got any space under a couch or similar you could create a hay area in? I've seen someone make a hay box out of a tub, put it in a otherwise inaccessible place, and connect it to the main cage using a tube. Means they have a hidey, but you don't have to extend like with a regular kitchen in a single-level C&C cage.

View attachment 45468
Click to expand...

I wondered if my piggies would use the loft and it took a couple of days to get used to the ramp but they seem to love it now.

It's a 2x1 loft and like @Dindypig all I have in the loft is a 4+ layer of newspaper and a nice layer of hay on top (photo is before adding hay!). Sometimes with a sprinkle of readigrass too. I have pegged a fleece over the whole top so it's nice and shady (I've switched to a darker coloured fleece now), and they have a hammock corner hidey there too.

I change the loft + wash out once a day and I keep any dry hay (generally about half is unsoiled) to use again. Downstairs I have 2 x hay trays which are newspaper topped with hay. I change these morning and evening. Just over 1 week into the routine now and no smells and seemingly very happy piggies (judging by the near-constant popcorning!)

DSC_0166.webp
 
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