newbie needing advice

  • Thread starter Thread starter moptop
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
M

moptop

Hi All
ive looked through the housing section, and discovered some interesting and exciting things
like keeping piggies on vetbed (thats made me well happy)

so heres the thing
i breed and show hamsters, and I'm about to take delivery of a 20ft x 10ft log cabin to move them into, once its been properly insulated and fitted out of course

so with all that space i can have a couple of girl piggies, ive never had them before, but i have a friend that breeds them, so thats the pigs themselves taken care of!
i came on here for advice on cages etc, but having read through the housing section, I'm wondering if a large dog crate with tray lined with vet bed and newspaper would be ok for them? with toys and beds etc?
obvioulsy they will have a run set up for outside when I'm there, and will possibly have the run of most of the shed during the day

any advice would be greatly appreciated
many thanks
 
Will the log cabin be heated? I'm just thinking if it gets cold, the dog crate won't hold in their heat, but you could have a little wooden house in it maybe? An extra large (120cm X 60cm) dog crate would be big enough, but make sure the bar spacing isn't too wide for them. If it is you can put extra wire mesh around it. Are you getting baby ones? They can fit through the bars of most cages until they're a couple of months old.

Vet bed should work for them as long as they don't eat it! And you might want to put some newspaper or a towel underneath it, to soak up the pee.

You'd have loads of space to put a second floor in the dog crate too.

But why do you want to use a dog crate instead of a cage? You can buy a guinea pig cage the same size for £35 on zooplus.co.uk

That sounds like a good set up though, with being able to run around in the log cabin and all :)
 
thanks for the reply
the only reason i thought of the dog crate was so they would have easy access in and out with the run of the cabin
th shed will be heated, lighting etc as the hams need all that, min 16 degrees
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Oh yeah that makes sense. :) If you go for a cage though, you could attach a ramp, or make some steps, they find them easy enough. I think a dog crate would be fine though, as long as they can't get their heads through the bars.

That sounds like hamster and pig heaven :)
 
I thought about using a spare dog crate I have here as a cage before our two fosters arrived. Though being a large crate designed for medium sized dogs, I have to say the gaps between the bars are too large. As mentioned, you could over the crate in wire to guinea pig proof it, but by the time you've bought a crate and doctored it for use, you'd probably spent alot more than building a C&C cage or getting a decent sized guinea pig cage.

Be aware that the gaps on many dog crates are often larger near the base along the edges where the base goes in. You may want to replace that with something that has higher sides to stop them escaping that way.
 
The crucial point are the gaps in the bars; you will have to make sure that guinea pigs, especially young ones, can't get their heads stuck between bars.
 
I had a look at the dog crates we use for the grooming parlour, and the spaces are too big for guinea pigs I think. Especially if it was a female and slightly smaller than normal, it definitely would be too big.
 
I have a dog crate I thought would be good for one of my guineas on the lawn but they can both fit through the gap where the tray goes.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top