Top 10 Essential Guinea Pig Supplies for New Owners!

Hey guys! So if you're thinking about becoming a guinea pig owner or you've just got guinea pigs, then this video is an in-depth guide to the 10 essential supplies you need to look after guinea pigs. Tick everything off this list and you're well on your way to becoming a great guinea pig owner. Okay so we're gonna dive straight in, we've got a lot to get through and we're gonna kick off this list with one of the most important things to your guinea pigs and it is of course their home. I do just want to say if you're thinking about whether to keep your guinea pigs inside or outside then I highly recommend keeping them inside. Indoor piggies are easier to tame, they're easier to bond and interact with and unless you have a really good outdoor setup like a specially designed shed it can be difficult to keep up to a good routine of caring for them and cleaning out the hutch on a regular basis. So if you've got space inside then I do really recommend having indoor piggies. Okay so I know I bang on about this but it's the fact that most guinea pig cages are not suitable for guinea pigs at all. Size is usually the biggest problem followed by the wrong type of cages being marketed at guinea pigs or cages with features that are not safe or not suitable for piggies. So my best advice is to be prepared to write off most of what you see in the shops and don't go any smaller than they're recommended and go as big as you can. There's a reason why guinea pigs get nicknamed furry potatoes, they aren't exactly the most agile of creatures and they don't benefit from having multi-level cages so opt for the biggest flat level floor space as a priority. And if you're looking for a mostly pre-assembled ready-to-go cage then the Midwest Guinea Pig Habitat or the KT Open Living are both good examples that give our guinea pigs a decent amount of floor space and they can be combined to add even more. If you want something more customisable then consider CNC cages. You can either build them yourself, there's really not much DIY skills needed, or these days you can get them ready to assemble from a few different companies where they've done all the hard work for you and it's really easy to put the cage together. Once we've chosen that cage it's time to start filling it full of everything your guinea pig needs. Okay I take that back, there is something that you need to consider first in case you haven't thought of it already and that's that our guinea pigs need companionship. Now I would love for that to mean just us but unfortunately we don't speak guinea pig. Having other guinea pigs around is something that's so important to your guinea pig's health and happiness and for any new owner you should always get at least two guinea pigs. You should also find that reputable breeders or rescues shouldn't be willing to give you a single guinea pig unless you have other guinea pigs that they can go and live with. Just remember that guinea pigs are naturally sociable. In the wild they'll live in herds and with other guinea pigs to live with they will be happier, healthier and more confident around you and you'll also get to see them interact. If you have got a single guinea pig at the moment it's not too late to get them a friend, just do some research, maybe look up rescues where you can find out about piggy dating so you can find a good companion for them. Okay so now we are actually ready to start putting things in this cage and at number three I have this high up on the list because it is one of the most important things and it is hay. Guinea pigs should eat loads of hay and it should form 80% of what they eat. The reason why hay is so important is because it wears their teeth down but it also provides a really high source of fibre in their diet. Guinea pigs are fibrevores and they rely on a constant supply of fibre to keep their digestive system going. As well as being furry potatoes, guinea pigs are basically walking intestines. Their guts take up a huge proportion of their body and hay is behind all that so make sure you choose a good quality hay that is dust free, that smells lovely and fresh and that your guinea pigs enjoy eating a lot of. If you find that they're being picky then maybe you can try some different brands and different types of hay. So for example I like to use a dust free meadow hay alongside a really nice good quality timothy hay. Our fourth supply is bedding for the cage and you can use hay as a bedding. I used to just use hay over newspaper to soak up the pee and that worked fine for many years. However once I started getting bigger cages I had to look at other options and if you know me, you know the channel, then you know that I use fleece for my guinea pigs. I have waterproof fleece liners and waterproof pads that I use in the hot spot areas and I usually do about one to two washes a week. That might sound a lot of work but for me it is much easier than having big bags of other beddings, say wood shavings, around. I've got to use loads of to fill up the entire cage. And if you want to try fleece out you don't need to get proper liners just yet. You can use just old towels, lay them down on the bottom of the cage and then just get yourself a cheap flat fleece throw from Primark, B&M or in the US Target or Walmart. Not something too fluffy, just your basic kind of cheapest fleece throw. You can put that down on top of the towels, tuck it around the edges and just try it out, see how you and your guinea pigs get on with it. So because I have fleece I'm going to be honest and say that I don't know an awful lot about other bedding options out there so that's why I'm going to pop a link down in the description from the guinea pig forum where they set out the pros and cons of all different sorts of bedding that you can choose for your guinea pig's cage. The kind of default one that everyone thinks of is wood shavings but there are a lot of other natural absorbent beddings that you can choose from. Moving on and our next supplier for guinea pigs is pellets and their food bowl. Whilst some owners choose to not feed pellets and just rely on hay and fresh veggies and forage for their guinea pigs, most owners do also choose to feed a dry pellet food and for growing guinea pigs and new owners, I would recommend that you get one just so you know they're getting all of the nutrients and vitamins that they need. And there are loads of guinea pig food brands out there but unfortunately just like the cages there are lots of unsuitable ones that we need to avoid. The main thing we want to avoid is selective feeding. This is where a muesli mix has lots of different sorts of things in it. It usually has a high sugar content and it might even have additives in there and because there's lots of different bits and pieces guinea pigs will usually pick out those ones that they prefer so it leads to an imbalance because they're always say going for the pea flakes which are more of a treat and shouldn't really be in the muesli mix anyway but that's a different matter. So the main thing to go for is a plain boring brown pellet that is advertised and marketed at guinea pigs and has extra vitamin c added. So some good brands that you might have heard of include Burgess XL which is what I feed my own piggies, there's also Harrington's, there's the Pets at Home Nuggets I believe are okay. In the US you've got Oxbow, Science Selective, so there is quite a lot of choice out there. Just remember don't go for those muesli ones and make sure you pick one that your guinea pig likes eating. And as for the food bowl for the pellets to go in, you want something heavy that they're not going to be able to knock over. A good quality heavy based ceramic bowl will work fine for this. And number six is your guinea pig's water bottle or water bowl and if you're wondering which to go for out of the two then I would recommend trying water bottles and only resorting to a water bowl if the bottles don't work because basically guinea pigs tend to be messy and the water bowl is going to get full of hay, probably poo, probably pellets, it's just going to turn into brown soup and you have to change it several times a day. Of course the water in the bottles needs changing too but that's just once a day and it stays much cleaner and much more hygienic in a bottle. Most guinea pigs are completely fine with drinking out the water bottle, they learn where it is quickly and they learn how to use it without a problem. However if you think that your guinea pig might be a bit dehydrated or maybe they're unwell then you could try putting a water bowl in there and see if they prefer to drink out of that more. So you can always have a backup bowl or maybe you'll just have two anyway because you like to use different ones for their pellets or the vegetables. But for the water I think the best option is to go for a bottle. If you've got a pair of guinea pigs then one bottle should be fine and you can get glass ones or plastic ones. Plastic ones tend to leak a little bit more and be of a lower quality so they might not last as long as the glass ones. The glass ones are more expensive but like I say they're a bit more durable and I find that they don't leak as much as the plastic ones. Whichever one you go for as well they will get dirty over time and they'll get algae growing in them if the sun's hitting them so I recommend getting a bottle brush so you can clean them out easily. Okay so the cage is looking pretty bare. We've got hay, food, water, that's about it. It's time to add some enrichment in there and hidey huts are a great way of doing this. Hideys provide cover for our guinea pigs and give them somewhere to go and chill out and relax and feel less exposed than just being in the open cage and this will actually help with their anxiety and feeling less stressed and less threatened when we're around as well. So in the beginning it's a good idea to have one hidey hut per guinea pig. You could get two different styles but avoid having hideys that are super closed in with really small entrances. Try getting ones with larger entrances and multiple entrances. These encourage our guinea pigs to come out and be that little bit braver and also it means that it's easier for us to see them so we're less inclined to keep going over and bothering them just so we can get a look at them. Especially in those early days where we want to avoid scaring them too much. So hideys I'd recommend include the willow sticks tunnel and wooden hideys with large entrances. You can get plastic ones but bear in mind they can chew on them and they usually have small entrances too. And of course this is where having a large cage comes in super handy because with a small cage we can put in a few hideys and suddenly all of the floor space is taken up and your guinea pigs have nowhere to run around and get that exercise they need. With a larger cage you can tuck hideys away in either corner and they've still got lots of free space in there. At number eight we have another fun cage accessory to go with your hideys and that is a tunnel. Tunnels are another fun thing to add to the cage that young piggies especially just love to run through. They'll incorporate tunnels on their laps of the cage and it's really fun to see. So in the beginning I'd recommend just getting yourself one of those cheap tube cardboard tunnels that you can pick up. I've got this huge one of the cage at the moment but you can also get the medium size which is a bit better for guinea pigs. It doesn't take up so much room in the cage and it will get a little bit dirty over time but they are relatively cheap so it's a good supply to start off with and in the future you can look at getting different sorts of tunnels if you want to branch out a bit more. Of course you can add more but in the meantime also think about using free things you've got laid around the house. You could make tunnels or hideys out of cardboard boxes or paper bags or just anything you've got laid around really as long as it's safe in case your guinea pigs might chew on it. At number nine and ten we have some supplies for outside of the cage and number nine is the grooming supplies that you'll need for your guinea pigs. Firstly all guinea pigs will need their nails clipping to stop them getting too long so for this you can either use human nail clippers, I have toenail clippers for my own guinea pigs, or you can get the curved specially designed ones for pets from the pet shop and either of these options work well. You could try one and if you're finding it difficult you might just need more practice but you could get the other one and see whether that's any easier for you. In the beginning especially that's going to be basically it for your grooming supplies. The only exception is if you have long-haired piggies. Now long-haired piggies look adorable but they do have a problem with the long hair especially around their back legs and their bottom area getting dirty, soaking up pee, getting tangled and forming mats of like hard hair so they do need to have that hair managed and you need to keep it quite short around their bottom. You can still leave it long on top but especially underneath around their back legs it needs to be kept as short as you can and the best tools for this are either safety scissors or clippers where it's completely safe and you're not going to catch their skin. With these you can keep that hair short and keep them much more comfortable and clean and you won't have to worry about baths or anything like that. If you are wondering about baths though then guinea pigs don't need baths very frequently at all. I would only ever bathe my guinea pigs if it was advised by the vet, if they had a skin problem for example, or if I had a long-haired piggy whose fur had gotten really dirty, really matted and it was hard for me to just simply cut it away. So in the beginning at least you don't need to worry about bathing your guinea pigs and in general just remember that they are good at keeping themselves clean and as long as you keep that hair short around their bottom on long-haired biggies then you shouldn't really need to go bathing them. At number 10 my last supply is to have a cozy bed or a blanket. Now you can use these inside the cage to give a cozy area but they are so useful for using outside of the cage for lap time with your piggies. With a fleece blanket or a cozy bed they can be sort of partially covered over and they will feel much happier and safer and secure when they're out on your lap. They'll basically feel less threatened from oars and it really does help with the taming and bonding process so I highly recommend getting like a soft blanket or you can get a cozy bed like a snuggle sack one that's covered over and use that for lap time. So with all these supplies you've got a really good starting point, you have everything you need to look after your guinea pigs properly. The only thing I haven't mentioned specifically because you don't really need to go too far out of your way to get it and it's not something that's labeled just for the guinea pigs is fresh vegetables that you might share with them and fresh vegetables form a part of their diet you can give them a small amount of say four or five different sorts every day or every other day. And as I mentioned with the cages and the pellets there are a lot of brands and a lot of products out there it can be confusing to know which ones you actually need and which ones you don't need. So that leads me on to the next video which I will pop up here once it's ready and it's 10 things that your guinea pigs don't need. So be sure to go and check that out so you can avoid getting something unnecessary for your guinea pigs or even something that could be potentially dangerous for them. But that is all for this video today guys I hope you enjoyed it, I hope you learned something. Thanks so much for watching and we will see you in the next one, bye!