Litter Training
Guinea pigs can be litter trained to a certain point. It does take time, patience and above all keeping to the routine. Guinea pigs will tend to defecate and urinate throughout the cage, but some owners have had great success in almost eliminating this behaviour and enabling their guinea pigs to do their business in their litter box. Please note however that guinea pigs will still do their business in the cage but less frequently and will tend to use the litter box more often.
What is the best method?
There are many methods for litter training guinea pigs. The below method has been used by many owners in Australia to successfully litter train their guinea pigs:
What you will need:
•Litter Tray
•Newspaper
•Chipsi or Carefresh Natural/Ultra
Step 1
Line a large litter tray with newspaper and top with some recycled paper cat litter pellets as these are safe and non toxic (if you have quite a few guinea pigs together you may need two litter trays)
Step 2
Only offer food in the litter tray as guinea pigs tend to do their business whilst eating
Step 3
Provide hay in a safe hay rack clipped on the cage above the litter tray to keep it dry and pellets/greens in a heavy bowl in their tray
Your guinea pigs will soon learn that their litter tray is where they eat and go to the toilet. Change their tray daily to every second day as a clean toilet will encourage them to use it more.This also applies for floor time, always supply a litter tray.
If you are holding them having lap time, watch for signs that they may need to use their litter tray such as getting restless.
Put them straight into their tray when returning them to their cage.Once you have litter trained your guinea pigs you will have a much cleaner cage which will result in less cleaning which benefits you and your guinea pigs.