JaseChase
Junior Guinea Pig
I feel like the answer is ‘no’ but wanted to see if there are any suggestions anyway
Tofu is currently being treated for his third haypoke of the year - the last one was only in July! I asked the vet if there’s anything I can do to reduce the chances of him getting it and she said not really, the types of hay I use (meadow from DustFreeHay and Timothy from HayBox) are okay and other than watching that I don’t have any spiky bits sticking up from under hideys, there’s not much I can do. She also said Tofu might have a weakened area in his eye from where it was infected last time as this poke is in exactly the same spot
I’m looking at my cage setup and wondering if there’s a better way I could have it organised. Currently I have three spots for hay - the meadow hay is split between a cat litter tray and either a carrot cottage or paper bag, and then a small pile of timothy in the front of the cage that gets changed out a couple times a day. It does usually end up all over the cage because they run through it so much, I sweep them once a day to keep it as clear as possible. Pic below from a couple months ago to see how I usually have it
Their current carrot cottage is almost torn through so I’ll be switching that back to a paper bag soon, but now I’m wondering whether to just ditch it all together and keep the hay mostly confined to the tray. Tofu loves hay diving and they both like sleeping in the paper bags, but maybe if he only had one area to do it in he’d be less likely to encounter spikes? The rest of my cage is fleece. We’re (hopefully) moving in a couple of months to a more permanent house and I want to upgrade their cage then (they’re in a 5x2 right now) - maybe having more space to run in would help too?
I have a feeling haypoke is just a thing that happens with piggies and I got lucky to never encounter it before this year. I haven’t changed my setup in that time and I’d hate to reduce their hay for no reason, though Tofu does have very little self control when faced with a giant pile of hay and he *will* dive in head-first so maybe I should just give him less opportunity to spare him from the dreaded eye drops
More piggie tax
Tofu is currently being treated for his third haypoke of the year - the last one was only in July! I asked the vet if there’s anything I can do to reduce the chances of him getting it and she said not really, the types of hay I use (meadow from DustFreeHay and Timothy from HayBox) are okay and other than watching that I don’t have any spiky bits sticking up from under hideys, there’s not much I can do. She also said Tofu might have a weakened area in his eye from where it was infected last time as this poke is in exactly the same spot
I’m looking at my cage setup and wondering if there’s a better way I could have it organised. Currently I have three spots for hay - the meadow hay is split between a cat litter tray and either a carrot cottage or paper bag, and then a small pile of timothy in the front of the cage that gets changed out a couple times a day. It does usually end up all over the cage because they run through it so much, I sweep them once a day to keep it as clear as possible. Pic below from a couple months ago to see how I usually have it
Their current carrot cottage is almost torn through so I’ll be switching that back to a paper bag soon, but now I’m wondering whether to just ditch it all together and keep the hay mostly confined to the tray. Tofu loves hay diving and they both like sleeping in the paper bags, but maybe if he only had one area to do it in he’d be less likely to encounter spikes? The rest of my cage is fleece. We’re (hopefully) moving in a couple of months to a more permanent house and I want to upgrade their cage then (they’re in a 5x2 right now) - maybe having more space to run in would help too?
I have a feeling haypoke is just a thing that happens with piggies and I got lucky to never encounter it before this year. I haven’t changed my setup in that time and I’d hate to reduce their hay for no reason, though Tofu does have very little self control when faced with a giant pile of hay and he *will* dive in head-first so maybe I should just give him less opportunity to spare him from the dreaded eye drops
More piggie tax