Older guinea pigs - more messy?

[luckyandsammy]

I've had a few older guinea pigs now (4+) and I've noticed that when they get older their cage gets a lot more messy.
They seem to pee a bit more and their poo kind of gets squished into it.
I've noticed it with Finn recently, and I actually changed him from bath mats to wood shavings yesterday as the mess on the mats was stinky and disgusting.
His poos are a good size and solid and his pee is normal, he had a urine test recently and it came back perfect, so is it just age?
Has anyone else experienced this?

 

[piggieminder]

That's interesting. I've noticed the opposite with my oldies. There's not as much poop and it tends to be in one or two places (usually sleeping spots) where they don't run around as much and sleep more.

 

[Bertie & Jelly]

A bit of both from my two oldies. Sometimes the poop is neatly piled up at the edge of their mats where they mostly sleep, at other times it looks like they’ve have a rave and squished it. Never caught them raving though - only sleeping

 

[Viennese Furbabies]

The cage is definitely wetter with oldies in my experience.
The poops ... well they are just everywhere.
Sometimes the oldies had softer poops than in younger years, but not always.

 

[Pound Shilling & Pig]

I've a trio of old doddery ladies who used to live in a big herd but now live in their own little herd so I can keep a closer eye on them and make sure they don't lose out to younger pigs. They appear to sleep most of the time and leave neat piles of poops in their hidies,. BUT for such inactive pigs they also leave a huge amount of poops scattered everywhere, squash poops onto the rim of their bowl and leave a few inside the bowl too.