why can't guinea pigs be litter trained?

[tabelmabel]

Like a rabbit? I know my guinea pigs can hold their wee and poo - because they never ever wee or poo on our knees - and often when we pop them back in the cage they will scuttle off to the litter tray and do a massive wee (I only know how massive as Stan's bum overhung the litter tray one time and a flood came out of it! But the good lad had kindly held on. However - though both piggies often do poo and wee in the trays - they also poo and wee all over the cage too! Why?!

 

[Hermes]

I think the short answer is that they can be litter trained, it's just a bit more difficult and less reliable than with other animals such as rabbits.

 

[CharlieH]

One of our piggies, Crumble, is fully litter trained. You'll only ever find poop or pee in the tray (minus the odd stray poop around the edge LOL) but she will get out of bed to go etc.

Makes cleaning a damn sight easier!

 

[tabelmabel]

Ah - thankyou! Has anyone one the forum got a guinea pig that is reliably litter trained? And did it just happen by itself?

I wonder why my piggies poop all over the cage then? when I know fine well they can hold it in?! Is it just *** they do about 571 poos per day?! (each!)

 

[tabelmabel]

One of our piggies, Crumble, is fully litter trained. You'll only ever find poop or pee in the tray (minus the odd stray poop around the edge LOL) but she will get out of bed to go etc.

Makes cleaning a damn sight easier!

OOH! I am well jel! How did you manage that then?

And what's with the asterisks on my previous post? I don't think I was trying to write anything remotely risque!

 

[CharlieH]

OOH! I am well jel! How did you manage that then?

And what's with the asterisks on my previous post? I don't think I was trying to write anything remotely risque!

She's the only one that does, all the others are hopeless

She did it on her own! They've had a litter tray for a couple of months now and she's only started using it properly in the last couple of weeks! I guess she's just tidy now she lives alone! Lol

As for the asterisks, I'm not sure I'm afraid!

 

[tabelmabel]

Both mine are boars.......I am not holding out a lot of hope - particularly for Stan. I've watched him wandering around the cage and the poo is literally drop drop drop - plopping out wherever he wanders!

 

[Yvo@21]

:<> well mr piggles was totally litter trained and i would find only a odd poop in his cage,he did still pee his bed at night though, it all changed when i got my two 7/8wk old boars,even though there in a diffrent enclosure piggles up top and wolly+cotton on the bottam,they cant see one another but can piggy chat ect,
Well since the babies came on sunday mr piggles has reverted back to pooping in his cage and weeing in his house through out day and night,although he will still use his litter tray when i bring him out for floor time!
So now with all three pooping and peeing freely I'm forever collecting poops of there fleeces!
Theres a litter tray in the babies enclosure but they wont use it! Maybe there still abit young.?

 

[JayneG]

If only! Just Toffee alone must do around 300 poops a day it seems. And what a sound the Hoover makes the next day going under the sofa rolleyesrolleyesrolleyes

 

[themartyrshark]

Having a litter tray in my cages is literally useless, except for Pippa. They do what they want. Ugh.

Pippa's such a good girl ^-^ She uses her corner tray all the time, but if it gets too icky, she'll go to the bathroom right in front of it. She's never made a muck of her house, I was actually able to build her a really nice sort of box for her, complete with some fancy levels and carpet. The carpet is removable, but after a month of it being there, still no pee stains and I've never had to vaccuum any little poops out either!

 

[Freela]

Mine aren't litter trained within the cage, but they only go in the cage... when they have play time, they go back into the cage to pee or poop rather than doing it on the floor, and when they are on our lap they get don't have accident unless we ignore the 'wiggly piggy' sign that they have to go. We didn't teach it to them- the older girl figured it out and the other pigs that we had paired with her just seemed to follow her lead because she's kind of the boss! LOL!

 

[suem]

My 2 babies are quite good. They have a litter tray and there are lots of wees and poos in it, some elsewhere as well but it makes cleaning easy. As for Bertie, dont even go there! He is "Man" and they wee anywhere! and like to spread it all over the cage and then jump in it!x)

 

[SpinningNickel]

Ah - thankyou! Has anyone one the forum got a guinea pig that is reliably litter trained? And did it just happen by itself?

I used to. I'm less sure now! I think they're just LAZY.

Ahhhh, my litter-training saga...

In the Ferplast, I'd got Machu 100% litter trained. Picchu was never SO bothered. But they used to use one corner, so I put a litter tray there. Every time I changed it, I'd sprinkle a bit of the wet woodchip back in so it smelled the same. After a month or so of this, I could put them in the playpen with that litter tray, and Machu would go from wherever he was in the cage over and use that, regardless of whether it was in a corner, in the middle of the pen, whatever.

But when I moved him into the big C&C with Yoshi, it became more difficult. If he was upstairs on their mezz level, he couldn't be bothered enough to go all the way DOWNSTAIRS. (I mean, GEEZ, woman, as if.) If he was on the lower level, yes, he would mostly hop over to his litter tray... but pooing on the fleece seemed more amenable to him than pooing on wood shavings for some reason, so sometimes he'd just do his thing I got a lot of strays. But he still seemed to confine his wee to the litter tray, which was fine by me because that's the smelly part, after all.

Now they have two litter trays -- one up and one down. The downstairs one rarely gets used, but I don't get many strays either. I think they just spend most of their day upstairs. (Y'know, with the FOOD.) The upstairs one gets used to death and needs changing almost daily. I think Yoshi is kind of following his cagemate's lead, although he obviously isn't as fastidious as Machu. I can't claim either one of them to be 100% trained now that they're in the C&C, but wee remains more or less confined to the trays, so I can now get away with a vac-based spot clean every 2-3 days and a complete change weekly.

Also, neither one has ever, ever gone on me. I haven't had Yoshi that long, and he's very squirrely so he doesn't get held for long periods of time anyway... so there's still time! Machu loves lap time most days and will sit happily for 20 minutes. If he needs a wee he starts wheeking and crawling about, and I put him back in the cage.