How to Set Up Floor Time with your Guinea Pigs with Less Accidents

Floor times are NECESSARY for piggies, but how do you manage them? Here are some...
Title banner picture of the article Setting Up Floor Time with your Guinea Pig showing guinea pig with blushed cheek and heart illustration

Floor time is very important to a guinea pig’s health. Many piggy parents have asked me through DMs many questions about guinea pig’s having floor time. The truth is, it’s a lot more important than you think. Imagine being in a closed space for a long period of time. This can be very detrimental to your guinea pig’s health for many reasons.

Floor Time with Guinea Pigs

Ideally, guinea pigs should have floor time everyday for at least 1 hour if your guinea pig is not a free-roaming guinea pig like my Tofu and Dumpling.

Having floor time will not only be great for your guinea pig’s physical health, but it will keep them stimulated. When setting up, it is a good idea to make sure your piggies are on a soft surface and prevent your floors with GuineaDad Liners.

What fun is it if it's just floor? To spruce up some fun, be sure to refer to this article to make the experience fun for both you and the guinea pigs. The article illustrates some fun activities that you can do with your piggies. 

I let my guinea pigs (Tofu and Dumpling) free roam between two rooms. I do this so they feel free and exercise through out the day. Many guinea pig owners ask me, “how do you prevent guinea pigs from peeing on the floor?”

Below are the infographics of heatmap are three tips to prevent guinea pigs from peeing or pooping on the carpet and floor during floor time. 

A Guide to Guinea Pig Floor Time

First tip is to remove legs from couches, sofa, cabinets, or any furniture, if you can. This will prevent your guinea pigs from crawling under them. While you are at it, try to remove any electrical wires (yes, your iPhone chargers too). 

Second, push furniture tightly against the wall so that there are no dark or narrow places.

Lastly, place GuineaDad Liners under the furniture in the floor time space to protect your floor and carpet. 

3 Tips for Guinea Pig Floor Time

Once you set up their floor time with the above tips in mind, it should be fun and comfortable for your piggies to play in and also easier for you to clean up!

Frequently asked questions:

Can guinea pigs walk on tiles and wood floors?

  • They can, but tiles and wooden floors can be too hard and slippery for guinea pigs. It could be especially dangerous when guinea pigs try to run after getting spooked (which happens rather often). It is always recommended to place a non-slippery, soft and waterproof material to protect your guinea pigs and floor such as fleece liners for guinea pigs

Why does my guinea pig not like floor time?

  • Guinea pigs are prey animals and they may feel uncomfortable in unfamiliar and open area. You can help them by placing multiple hiding places (suggestions) through out the floor time space. You could also help them forget about all the worries by providing veggies during the floor time. Here are some tasty treats that could also help your guinea pigs become more comfortable with floor time.

 

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13 comments

Floor time is amazing..never knew my little guy Ollie could gallup..he doesnt ever want to go back to his pen..haha..it helped his poops less impacted too..

Tawney McQueen

Hi Michelle – Our largest pee pad is our 2×2 which measures 27″×27″. You could also use our full size liners, which come in the following sizes:

Midwest: Designed for a Midwest Guinea Habitat, which is ~24″×47″ (61×120cm)
2×4: Designed for a 2×4 C&C, 27″×56″ (69×142cm)
2×3: Designed for a 2×3 C&C, which is ~27″×41″ (69×104cm)

Paula

Thank you for all of your guidance. Your website has been extremely helpful. My guinea pigs run around my bedroom floor. There are no hazards to them, but they create quite a bit of poop and pee. Is there a super large pee pad that I can use to just line my carpet with, and then be able to change it out?

Michelle Fitzpatrick

@Jenifer wow, that’s really awesome! my girls are comfortable with me, but never loved being held. haha and, I usually worry more about the pee more than poop especially with Dumpling who pees on purpose to show her discomfort in any way.

GuineaDad

@Tammie I totally understand. You might have heard this story time to time from our YT videos, but when I first adopted Dumpling from the rescue, Peanut did not get along well with her. But when I started free-roaming in the studio apartment with two separate safe spots (one main cage area, and another area under my computer desk with liner, hay and water), Dumpling always could just run away from Peanut. At first, Peanut would follow Dumpling to pick a fight, but eventually Peanut realized that there is so much space, there is no need to fight for “territory” I am not sure if it will work for your case, but I feel that if there are two “cages” where they can freely travel from one another, it helps. I guess this would only work if the weaker pig understands the hierarchy and would run than fight.

GuineaDad

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