Cleaning Out Guinea Pigs
How to clean out your Guinea Pigs cages and hutches.
There are two different types of clean out: the daily clean, which is a brief overview clean, picking up bits of the mess and replacing wet bedding, and the weekly clean, which involves emptying the entire contents of the cage, spraying it down, and putting in fresh bedding.
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Daily cleanComplete this Guinea Pig clean out as regularly every day. We have listed useful products that may help you with your clean. It is worth investing in some of them.
Removing poo Every day, morning or evening, you should quickly scan over the bedding and remove all visible poo pellets from the cage. This is because they can go mouldy, or squish into a paste that will cover the Guinea Pig and get stuck in their fur. They can also attract flies. Removing wet bedding If you have good bedding, it should absorb their pee and leave no wet/damp pools on the bottom of the cage. Gently feel the bedding and pick out the clumps of wet bedding, and replace it with nice dry bedding. Trusted Guinea Pig bedding:
Removing uneaten fresh food
Remove the fresh fruit and veg that they have not eaten from the previous meal. This will help to stop mould from accumulating, and will help to keep their feeding area clean. Removing wet hay If your Guinea Pigs frequently distribute the hay you feed them around their cage, this is perfectly fine, but hay is a terrible bedding, and doesn't absorb their pee or poo. This will mean there is a pile of wet, smelly, poo covered hay in their cage, and this needs removing immediately, as it can attract small insects such as ticks. You should also consider investing in a hay feeder, to stop this from happening. Place Hay in a hay feeder for better cage conditions:
Removing dry food
Remove all the dry food that they have tipped out of their food bowl. As soon as it is no longer in their food bowl, it isn't good to eat. Topping up fresh supply of water If their water bottle is running low, you should top it up. Alternatively, if their water has been in the bottle for over a week, you should replace it completely to avoid it getting stagnant or mouldy. |
Weekly cleanSchedule a set day and time every week when you will complete this full clean out. Regular weekly full cleans will help prevent a smell that can attract vermin, rats and mice, flies (that can cause fly strike) and more harmful animals. This full clean out should take at least an hour.
Empty cage This includes the Guinea Pigs! Place them in a playpen or large box whilst you initiate the clean out. Then, remove all toys, treats, food bowls, etc... and place them in a clean safe place. Then, scoop out all of the bedding, and tip it straight into a rubbish bag. Make sure that no pellets of poo and bits of bedding are left. Also remove uneaten dry food, and uneaten fresh food that is on the floor of the cage. Scrub the cage If the cage has clumps of muck and poo plastered to the bottom, you can scrape this off with a spade, or scrub with an old kitchen brush (or toothbrush) and soap, so long as you wash off the soap thoroughly afterwards, as it may be harmful to the Guinea Pig. Spray down You should now have a completely empty cage, with nothing inside. You can spray down the bottom of the cage with some pet safe spray, we highly recommend Johnsons Clean N Safe small animal spray, as it is non-toxic, and eliminates odours as well as killing germs. You can spray all wet patches of urine or dried urine residue with Urine Off, a great urine remover. This spraying down is an important step, as it can kill all harmful bacteria and viruses, and can be used to clean food bowls and can be used in the same place that Guinea Pigs feed from as it is non toxic. You should spray until all of the cage bottom is covered, and wait 15-20 minutes, when it has dried. Use these Guinea Pig sprays for best hygiene results:
Top up bedding
Now the pet safe spray has dried, you can put in some fresh, clean, dry bedding. You can put it straight in the cage, or you can put newspaper down first. Newspaper is useful to put down before the bedding, because you can remove the bedding by just rolling up the newspaper, instead of having to scoop up all the bedding, scoop by scoop. Whether you put newspaper down or not, you should put a layer of fresh bedding down. We don't reccommend sawdust, because it can get messy, can get up the Guinea Pigs nose, and is terrible at absorbing pee and poo. Instead, we will list the bedding we reccommend below this section. Distribute around 4-5 cm of bedding evenly around the cage (put a bit more in the sleeping compartment) unless the instructions on the package of the bedding says otherwise. I recommend the Absorption Corp care fresh natural bedding (click here) because it is highly absorbent, is compressed, and has amazing odour control, and lasts for ages. I only have to put a tiny amount in and it will last all week. Recommended absorbent bedding brands:
Top up food bowl, water and hay
Completely replace all the dry food in their food bowl. You should clean out the food bowl if it has crumbs or wet food in the bottom. The water bottle should be washed out with fairy liquid, and rinsed thoroughly. The hay feeder should be completely emptied and topped up with fresh dry hay. Remove bin bags After the clean out, move the bin bag that you put all the waste in well away from the cage. This is because it may attract vermin, mice and rats, flies and other harmful unwanted pests. Throw out the bag as soon as it begins getting full. |