Recycling Previous Purchases

Bad Buys Made Good and Putting Household Items to Work

Almost all of us start out our guinea pig guardian experience with wrong items purchased at pet stores. If you can no longer return those items, they need not go waste. You can still upgrade your guinea pig's habitat to a Cubes and Coroplast cage while using many of the items you may have already purchased in a different way.

Bad Cages Made Good
	Aquariums Turn your aquarium into a hidey house. These photos show two small aquariums stacked to provide a hidey house and an upper deck--accessible with brick pavers. The aquariums were covered with a material to give a more cave-like, cozy feel for the guinea pigs. As a part-time hidey house only, the large open front provides ample ventilation. Any bedding or lining material must be kept clean. The cage shown is the Marchioro brand.
	Cage as Sleeping Quarters Only Turn your small pet store cage into sleeping quarters within a larger habitat area. This setup could be a permanent home or only used for floor-time in conjunction with a traditional C&C cage. We would recommend this setup as a floor-time only version, because the clean-up in a permanent setup would probably be too difficult over time. The grids and toys shown here were purchased in the UK. Standard cubes or grids can be used just as easily.
	Traveling or Vacation Cage Sometimes you need a smaller, temporary cage to make short trips with your guinea pigs. A pet store cage can also be used for a few days to a week or two on a temporary basis in someone's home for them to watch your guinea pigs while you are away on vacation. Hospital Cage Occasionally, you may need a smaller cage for a guinea pig to recover from an illness or surgery. A smaller cage can help them recover faster as they are more constrained and less likely to pull stitches or overexert themselves. Quarantine Cage If you bring a new guinea pig home to an existing one, you should quarantine your new guinea pig away from any at home for a few weeks to make perfectly sure it is healthy. You can use your old or too small as a temporary quarantine cage.
Cage Ideas and Accessories
	Jade's Bunk Bed Cage Jade's ideas for recycling inexpensive items into cage accessories.
Exercise Balls Yes, they come with a picture of a guinea pig on the box. No, they should NOT be used for guinea pigs. But, they keep selling them, because people keep buying them. The curvature of a guinea pig's spine is the opposite of the ball. The guinea pig is not as flexible as rats and hamsters which do fine in balls and wheels. It can hurt their back, feet, and toes.