Provide all guinea pig necessities must be your number one priority. Knowing all the need of your guinea pig is the most important matter as an owner. The first thing of list should be the new cage or house or habitat for you guinea pig. You should and must have the cage before you bring the guinea pig home. Guinea pig cage would easily be found in pet stores and online stores with variant of models, sizes, and prices; all depend your personal budget and taste which cage is more relevant with your situation and condition.
After the cage is ready, you need to fill the cage with some primarily equipment such as hay holder (food container) and water container, bed, and some toys as amusement for guinea pig. Do not mistaken that toys aren’t important items, it is way more important than you ever thought. It’s like a TV, radio, and even music of human – keep us entertain from our busy and our tire daily routine. Without toys (especially if your guinea pig is alone) your beloved guinea pig would be feel lonely, which lead to depression and other mental illness.
Certainly, you can’t always present for your pet; so, it is a must, to put some toys to keep your pet busy even when you’re not present. Moreover, the temperature inside the cage also need adjustment. For further detail of temperature, you could check this article out: guinea pig temperature guide. The other subject need to learn is the proper diet of guinea pig: for me this is the most fatal matter that every owner must know, because there are foods we must avoid to give guinea pig due to their health.
A lot of time, people who lack of the proper diet information would give their pets (guinea pigs) food that could be dangerous for their body. This need to be prevent earlier, for guinea pig’s own good. Now, after every equipment is complete, then you could start to bonding in comfort with your beloved animal. Most of the time, people would to same training in case of bonding, and I suggest you to read this article: ways you should copy to tame your guinea pig.
The last thing you could do as owner to make sure your guinea pig live longer and happily is maintained the cleanliness of your guinea pig and the cage. Do not expect guinea pig would live healthy if the cage’s environment showed another. For your note, guinea pigs clean themselves, so frequent bath is not necessary. You could bath guinea pig once a month, some people even bath them several times a year. Unless is very necessary, you don’t have to bathe them. However, here’s some good recommendation item that could help you clean guinea pig’s fur and skin: the best shampoos for guinea pig.
Water scared them; so, frequent bath is not recommended. But, although they only need fewer bath, doesn’t mean it could be an excuse for you to only clean the cage for fewer times also – that’s not going to happen my friend! But, however, there’s certain proper ways to clean the cage of guinea pig you must follow. These ways would ensure the cleanliness of your guinea pig cage, so please keep that in mind!
Cleaning Guinea Pig’s Cage
1. Daily Cleaning
However, there are two type of cleaning methods you could apply for your guinea pig, the first one is daily cleaning, which is a simple cleaning; second, is weekly cleaning (or whatever plan you have made) which is the complete full-cage cleaning. Now, we would talk about the daily cleaning first. Daily cleaning mostly used daily basis cleaning methods which quite simpler than the schedule one.
All you need to do before start the daily cleaning is move guinea pig to somewhere else which is safe; make sure that your guinea pig is comfort enough, then you could start clean the cage. First, spot any excess and waste foods inside the cage; do it with a wet towel. Make sure you reach every part of the cage – remove all the soiled equipment for the example is bed with the clean one; remove the dirty containers (food and water) if you notice it was dirty.
Then, refill the food and water with the fresh supply; keep in mind, if you notice that the food or water was tainted with any dirt, immediately change it. Furthermore, clean the dishes with soap and wash it with hot water to eliminate some bad bacteria. It’s all in vain if you clean it but if the bacteria still attach on the containers.
2. Schedule Full-cage Cleaning
Next list of 2 ways to clean the cage of guinea pig is schedule the full-cage cleaning. The proper cleaning should be conduct once on every week – this is the minimum. You can do longer than this, because the bacteria are growth faster than you expected. Throughout this complete cleaning, you could ensure the cleanliness of the cage which could affect guinea pig overall health.
First, you should remove all equipment inside the cage: toys, water and food container, bedding, and the hiding place. Similar to basis cleaning, remove the leftover foods and water inside the containers, wash the dishes – water and food containers – with soap and wash it with hot water and leave it to dry. You also need to wash any toys and hiding place that able to wash (water-resistant materials).
The next step is remove the dirt inside the cage – all the substrate material to plastic bag. You could use cat-poop scooper to remove the dirt inside the cage; make sure is not the same item that you used for your cat or dog (some diseases are contagious). Then spray the cage the potion of detergents, warm water, vinegar, and for addition (you could use it or not) bleacher: a half cup of bleacher for one gallon water.
Leave the potion clean the cage for ten minutes long to kill all the bad bacteria which attached on the cage, and then rinse the cage with hot water. Make sure you reach all parts of the cage, then let it until it is dry naturally (under the sunlight) or you could use paper towel to dry the cage for faster way. After the cage is dry and ready to use again, then you could set up the cage again as before; put all the equipment inside the cage, all toys, the bed, water and food containers, also the hiding place.
So, that is how you should clean your guinea pig’s cage, my friends. I hope you enjoyed it, and good luck!