Trying to make more room for my guinea-pigs

[Alicia]

I have 7 guinea-pigs in 4 hutches. I have a sow and boar in the same hutch with a divide down the middle (I know it's not ideal but at the moment it's the best I can do) 3 sows live in another hutch but it is only just big enough for the 3 of them and i tried putting the other sow in with them and it really was too cramped. The hutch that the boar and the sow are living in looks like this:

It isn't high off the ground anymore, it's in the shed. I want to keep my sows together but all 4 of them it might be a bit cramped in that hutch. I am trying to think of ways to extend it but I can't really think of much. I have though about getting a plastic box that is about the same length as the hutch and putting it in front of the hutch, and putting grids round it, it wouldn't add loads of space but I'd work out how much and see if all 4 sows could fit. Then the boar could go in the sows old hutch (after a good cleaning out obviously) which is smaller. My mum doesn't want to buy another hutch and I understand why, because she pays for all the bedding and hutch. Is there any way I can add to it? I have some C&C grids, I can't make a C&C cage but could I use the grids in any way to add to it? Really need some help please because it's just not fair on the sow and the boar living the way they are and I want to change it ASAP. Thanks

 

[Alicia]

I've been thinking about this and I thought about getting a large piece of wood about the same size and length of the hutch and putting C&C grids round the outside then maybe some newspaper. I'm not sure how often I'd need to change it though? I could put shavings in that bit but it would probably go everywhere, I could tidy it up a bit but because it would just be grids they would probably kick almost all the shavings out. I know it's just grids so it might be quite cold but they are in a shed so do you think that would work?