My girls love hay more than anything so multiple times a day I have to get them a fresh pile. One of their favorite things to do is to burrow into the hay, now I don't want to discourage them from doing something they enjoy but are they at risk for eye pokes? I've never seen them get poked I suppose I am just worried about it. They don't do it constantly it's just right after I put it down they popcorn around then dive right in then they settle into just standing on top of it and eating. Thanks!
Piggies digging through hay
- Thread starter Micah
- Start date
Betsy
Anniversary Herd
Piggies love nothing more than running though and burrowing in hay. Making hay nests is also great fun. It's also good enrichment for them. Lexi and Thea (who I adopted in November last year) didn't have very much hay to play in at their last home so they love nothing more than playing in it and are constantly eating it too. So far only Thea has had hay poke. Meg is nearly 6 and she has hardly had hay poke at all. She just loves a hay pile.
Bill & Ted
Forum Buddy
Hello and welcome to the forum
Mine lot do that too, here’s Hector and Kiki this morning with new hay. Haypoke is just unfortunate, it can happen at any time, I think some are more prone to it than others. I’ve never had a piggie with haypoke
Mine lot do that too, here’s Hector and Kiki this morning with new hay. Haypoke is just unfortunate, it can happen at any time, I think some are more prone to it than others. I’ve never had a piggie with haypoke
That's good to hear! I have a whole corner of the cage that is just for hay because they love digging so much! I guess I was just anxious. Mine are all around the same age pretty young so they are all very hyper especially when it comes to hay. Thank you <3
Oh, what cute names they look so sweet this makes me feel much better. Thanks <3
Mine love nothing more than being in amongst huge piles of hay (their whole cage is bedded with hay). They can still get hay poke even if bedded on fleece and hay in hayracks so really haypoke is part and parcel unfortunately.
Haypokes are an occupational hazard of keeping piggies. It’s a design fault, but some piggies seem to go through their lives without ever having one, whereas others can have several in a row. Mine love burrowing in their hay and it’s good for their enrichment so I just let them have huge piles of the stuff.
metalhead
Junior Guinea Pig
Hay diving! mine love it! i use meadow hay which is softer for them to dive in to in their hay loft and have a corner box for timothy hay which is coarser for them to munch but its too shallow to dive in to, so that reduced the risk of pokes! Also gives them variety to eat! i just love the wheeking when they hay dive, they sound so happy (I'm saying they but i lost one of mine a month ago and the other one is away ((Hopefully)) being bonded at a rescue so i have an empty cage at the moment and i cant get used to saying he! but thats by the by!)
Freela
Senior Guinea Pig
I think most pigs love diving headfirst into the hay (I know Tomie isn't happy until she is completely buried in it.) Does it put them at risk for eyepokes? Yeah... that's why so many piggies get eye injuries. Can you stop them from doing it? Not really, honestly. That said, we've been lucky and have never had an eyepoke injury in 13 or so years of pigs (though now I've jinxed it and Tomie will probably poke herself in the eye sometime in the next hour or so!)