I'm a relatively new guinea pig owner and am still not settled on what to line his cage with.
At the rescue centre they used hay. It's relatively inexpensive and not too difficult to clear up but I worried that some bits may be sharp for his under belly, and didn't like the idea that he may try to eat hay that he's soiled and walked in.
The next option was wood chip/shaving/pellets. I saw they'd used these in the rescue centre as well. I like this option as it seems fairly soft for him, absorbs his wee, and allows him to bury his poo. But it wasn't cheap to get stuff I was sure was guinea pig safe, and I had enduring worries that he may be breathing in dust all the time. It also was very messy to clean up although needed cleaning out less often than the other options.
For the last few weeks we've been using flease blankets. Extremely cheap from Ikea and can be shaken out and thrown in the wash at cleaning time, and I think piggie likes the softness. But downside is that he seems to soil them very quickly. I cleaned him out at around 6pm this evening and by midnight the flease is in places very heavily soiled. He's quite a messy poop machine and regularly knocks his food over so that inevitably gets trodden in, and he will take hay from his rack and make thick layers of it across the flease - something he didn't do when we used hay or wood chip for his flooring. It also can take a while for his wee to soak through to the newspapers underneath, meaning it can be damp for a little while in some areas, where the wood chip absorbed it more instantly.
What do other people use for flooring in their cages?
At the rescue centre they used hay. It's relatively inexpensive and not too difficult to clear up but I worried that some bits may be sharp for his under belly, and didn't like the idea that he may try to eat hay that he's soiled and walked in.
The next option was wood chip/shaving/pellets. I saw they'd used these in the rescue centre as well. I like this option as it seems fairly soft for him, absorbs his wee, and allows him to bury his poo. But it wasn't cheap to get stuff I was sure was guinea pig safe, and I had enduring worries that he may be breathing in dust all the time. It also was very messy to clean up although needed cleaning out less often than the other options.
For the last few weeks we've been using flease blankets. Extremely cheap from Ikea and can be shaken out and thrown in the wash at cleaning time, and I think piggie likes the softness. But downside is that he seems to soil them very quickly. I cleaned him out at around 6pm this evening and by midnight the flease is in places very heavily soiled. He's quite a messy poop machine and regularly knocks his food over so that inevitably gets trodden in, and he will take hay from his rack and make thick layers of it across the flease - something he didn't do when we used hay or wood chip for his flooring. It also can take a while for his wee to soak through to the newspapers underneath, meaning it can be damp for a little while in some areas, where the wood chip absorbed it more instantly.
What do other people use for flooring in their cages?
