Having a hard time maintaining the sweet smell from your guinea pig cage? Don’t worry; you’ve got company. There are many guinea pig lovers who find it difficult to keep the cage neat and clean despite regularly washing it.
So what are we missing? Exactly how to keep guinea pig cage clean? Well, in this lifehack article, we will be sharing the proper way to maintain the cleanliness of the cage for a long time. Follow us till the end to find out how!
How to Keep Guinea Pig Cage Clean?
There are many ways you can keep a guinea pig cage clean. Some are to be followed even before you own a cage, while some are done after you use it. Here is the breakdown.
1. Buy a Large Cage
Size does matter. You can see the difference between a small and a large cage when you transfer a guinea pig to a larger crate. It will immediately act more lively and active. The reason is it gets more room to roam around, and it can leave its waste in a diverse area.
Have you ever noticed that keeping junk in a confined place causes a more severe smell than keeping it in a large area? That’s the logic behind using a larger cage for your pet. It will get less messy, less smelly, and you get more lead time between two washes.
2. Train Them to Use Litter
Although it may sound funny and gross, guinea pigs poop where they eat. So fixing a feeding area may work great for them to consolidate the waste in a specific place, too. You can always use a removable litter to train them with.
It will make your cleaning task easier. It is positive that they will not randomly poop around and will ‘ease’ themselves right at the litter you have set. Simply take the litter out when they are ‘done’ and clean it up for a new round.
3. Use Fleece
Using fleece can positively influence the behavior of guinea pigs. They do like the comfortable feeling that fleece gives them under their paws. That makes them more aware of where they are relieving themselves.
It triggers them more to go to the litter-place to poop and drop waste. Eventually, making it easy for you to maintain the junk and keep the sleeping and resting areas clean.
How to Clean a Guinea Pig Cage?
Now that you know how to make sure your pet-crate doesn’t get dirty, here’s a solution to another issue. What if the cage gets dirty, even if you have taken all the precautions? Well, time to wear your cleaning cap! Let’s find out how to clean a guinea pig cage!
Before we get into the cleaning tutorial, here’s a quick QnA. How often should you clean the pet cage?
The rule of thumb here is to make sure that the cage doesn’t smell or stink. If that requires you to clean the crate two times a day, so let it be! Nothing can be done in this case.
But generally, it doesn’t get that messy. You may follow a regular pattern of cleaning the cage once a week for a deep clean. And there should also be a daily cleaning session that would be a bit of a lighter one than the weekly cleaning.
The daily cleaning may involve removing and disposing of hay, wet food, and bedding. On the other hand, the weekly one would involve getting everything out of the crate and give it a deep clean.
There are a number of factors that determine how often you should clean it. For example, if you are using fleece as a bed, you need to clean the cage every day. Again, shaving would mean you can change it every 3 to 4 days. So how you choose the bedding would indicate the cleaning interval.
Another factor is the number of guinea pigs. Obviously, if there are more pets inside, you need to clean more often.
And if the guinea pig is aged, then it also means you need to run the cleaning session regularly than in the case of a young pet. That’s because aged guinea pigs leave more waste than the younger ones.
The Cleaning Process
Here is a standard cleaning process that you can follow. Make sure you gather all the elements before you start.
Daily Cleaning
Follow these steps to clean the cage on a daily basis.
- Get rid of any leftover food and waste
- Remove old and used pile of hay and replace with a new batch
- Use a stiff brush to pick up any left stool from the fleece
- Remove any wet and solid sections left in the kitchen place
- You can add dry bedding in the same place
- Put fresh water in the water pans
Weekly Cleaning
Follow these steps to clean the crate on a weekly basis.
- Evacuate the kitchen or the litter pan place, remove the litter with vinegar solution
- Get rid of the entire fleece bedding inside. You can remove the poops in the cage, or you can take the fleece bed out and brush it all off from it. Use a stiff brush for this purpose.
- Now clean the fleece with a clean and clear detergent. You can also add about half-cup of vinegar to reduce the odor. This will also help to disinfect it. Now dry it up naturally.
- Clean the dryer’s lint trap out once with every load
- Replace the bedding with a fresh bed in the litter-place.
- Take a bottle brush to clean and wash the water pots.
- Replace the hayrack with new and fresh hay.
- Wait for the wetness to evaporate, and you’re done.
Final Words
Even if you didn’t have the slightest idea on how to keep guinea pig cage clean, we believe now you do. It’s not a tough nut to crack cleaning the pet cage, but it sure needs consistency and regularity. If you can follow the guidelines we have provided here regularly, cleaning the cage is the last thing you will need to worry about. Happy petting!