Pet Habitat South Africa

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13 Jun 2015

Floor Time With Your Guinea Pigs

Posted By : Guest

Filed Under : Guinea Pigs | Pet Care

Everyone needs exercise to remain healthy. It’s simply the way bodies work. Your guinea pigs also need plenty of activity and exercise to stay healthy for the span of their lifetimes. While an extra-large cavy home is ideal, your pets still need some floor time every day to get all the benefits of an active life.

Setting up a floor time area for your piggies

The point of floor time is exercise. And for guinea pigs, that means plenty of room to scamper across an expanse of floor. Even if your pets have an exceptionally large housing area, floor time helps to stimulate them mentally, so don’t discount its importance.

To create a floor space playground choose a room, hallway or corner without wires or tight spots where cavies can become stuck. Guinea pigs tend to prefer dimly lit corners, so having one or two is a bonus. Next, protect the area. Many recommend laying bathmats to protect your floor because they are washable. An extra layer of protection in the form of newspapers will help when it’s clean up time.

Next, make sure the area is secure with mesh gates or another barrier that keeps cavies from escaping to the dangers in the rest of your home. Fill this space with some food, water and toys. As prey animals, guinea pigs don’t feel comfortable in big open spaces and in these cases will tend to move around the edges. This means it’s very important to add plenty of tunnels, boxes and other hiding spaces, so they can scamper from one to the other.

Then add your piggies! Don’t worry if they don’t understand or act nervously the first few times; they’ll soon learn to love their floor time.

What else do you need to know about floor time?

There’s a difference between floor time and lap time. Floor time is all about exercising and your piggies should be allowed to run and play during this time. That doesn’t mean you can’t get involved (perhaps leading them on a treasure hunt for treats) but snuggling them falls into lap time. Don’t discount the importance of stroking your pets and bonding with them this way, but this is not exercise.

Typically, the smaller their housing area, the more floor time your cavies need. Regardless of housing size, cavies will benefit from about 45 minutes to an hour of floor time daily. Your piggies will appreciate your ability to provide floor time at the same time every day.

Don’t forget, cavies always need to eat and need access to hay or something to snack on during floor time. They’re also susceptible to illness in draughty areas, and they will do nothing but hide if there are too many noises around their floor time playground.

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