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.