What Makes A Good Piggy Hideaway

[Hallibut]

Hi,

I'm at a loss with my two piggies. I've put a large, open fronted box in the corner of our cage with two snuggle sacks in it. Both my pigs prefer to dig their way past the snuggle sacks into the box and sleep / hide either on, under or behind the snuggles sacks.

What's that all about? I don't get it. The sacks are comfy, cosy, dry and spacious. They will happily wander in and out of them and sleep in them during floor time and occasionally when they are in the cage, but they prefer to hide in the box.

I would like to use the box as it's large enough to act as a shelf with food bowls on top, and the pigs are happily hopping on and off it so it allows me to save some floor space in the cage so they have plenty of room to run around.

If I don't put the snuggle sacks in to turn the box into two separate hides, the more dominant pig tends to defend the whole space and push the smaller pig out.

So I guess the central question is what makes a good piggy hideaway? What psychology is at play here? I don't think they dislike the sacks, I just suspect they see them as less secure than the box, but why? What is it they need from their hide to feel secure?

 

[piggyfan]

Hello. Welcome to the forum. Guinea pigs love to hide in dark places. I would put a fleece in the box so if they wee they will not be sitting on wet cardboard. You could have the snuggle sacks dotted around the cage. They will get used to the snuggle sacks but a box offers more safety to them.

 

[Lilly]

I use various different set-ups with my 2 boys, changing things at full clean out to provide variety. I notice that each best likes a hidey of his own (so 2 hideys), that is large enough to sprawl out with back legs stretched out, but has roof & sides (so only 1 entrance or at most 2 like in a tunnel), and a soft floor.. So basically something that feels like a den to them. That is their favourite, but I don;t always use those sorts of hideys as I like to give them different environments.

Sometimes for variety I just make a huge hidey by stretching a fleece across the cage for roof & fringing the front that hangs down into a curtain. Like your 2, this causes disagreements unless I put in 2 cosy cups so that it seems to them like there is 2 spaces. They use the cosies in various ways: laying inside, behind & beside.. Sometimes Peanut Butter likes to play turtle, flips his over & sleeps under it. Sometimes he just pushes it out through the curtain as if he doesn't want it in the hidey.

So, I think you are fine to continue with the set up you have now, so long as there are 2 spaces inside the box to avoid territorial disputes. Using the top of the box for food bowls sounds like a good space saving idea. Many members seem to have commercial cages which come with a plastic hidey & food bowl on the roof.

 

[7squeakers.]

I was going to say something along the same lines as Lilly. Give them 2 hides to prevent arguments, or 3 if you have the space.
Each of my 3 pairs of pigs have either a grass hut or grass tunnel, a wooden Trixie hut or log cabin and a wooden bridge.

 

[Hallibut]

Guinea pigs love to hide in dark places.

I was wondering if it was darkness that was the key factor.

 

[piggyfan]

I was wondering if it was darkness that was the key factor.

I think piggies love hiding in darkness.

 

[Gizi]

Maybe they can't get into the cosy stacks easily? I personally don't like the cosy sacks and I would prefer a house with fleece bedding inside in a dark place

 

[CandECosies]

Guinea pigs do like darkness. Although domestic guinea pigs are far removed from their wild ancestors they do still have some of their genetic traits and given their wild counterparts live in caves and burrows you can understand why they like dark places.

As such, snuggle sacks can give them somewhere but you may find some prefer tunnels where it can be dark and enclosed but with the openings give them the 'security' of being able to 'escape' if they need to.

 

[afu]

My piggies prefer sleeping on top of snuggle sacks when they are in their run too, but like yours they are perfectly happy to go inside them during floor time!

I have come to the conclusion that my boys just like being as awkward as possible, for example when they just had one grass hut with two exits they refused to share it, but now they have one each they are quite happy to snuggle up together in the original one!