Potty training piggies!

[Rene]

Hi,
My vet has advised me that I can train my 3 piggies to go in a litter box. She said that they sell "guinea pig litter" in the pet stores but it is expensive and I can just as easily use kitty litter. This seems absurd with all of the chemicals. Am I being paranoid? I do have 3 though, so I am changing my paper a lot. P.S. You will all be happy to know that I had used shavings before coming upon your site. NEVER AGAIN!

[Susie (Barmy4Boars)]

Hey Rene,
great news on the shavings. Its a huge shock to allot of people as so many people do keep piggys on shavings as do many pet shops ets, but rescuers tell me all the piggys with skin conditions they come across are shavings piggys and with the other reasons it is best to steer clear so well done!

Re: potty training some pigs do some don't. Cat litter is not a good idea, it does have chemicals, fumey when wet and is harmful if ingested (piggys eat anything). Actually I used to have litter trays, those high sided ferret ones. I used regular bedding (megazorb I use for cage) in the trays and just put a bit of wet bedding in there when they had weed and poops, most of them caught on. Some Piggys are naturally tidy & stick to a corner, others poop everywhere and can't be trained. Thing I found is you need a very large cage to pull off a litter tray like that without restricting excercise space so I removed mine, though I could probably put one in now I have big C&C pens. Some piggys sleep in those litter trays though which I was a bit worried about though it doesn't seem to worry them!

Try it and see.

[cutiecavies]

You could use paper cat litter I use bob martins recycled paper litter.

[sammi]

I use a paper product called Small Pet Eco Bedding ( www.fibercorellc.com/ ) or CareFresh ( www.supershavins.com/cf1.htm ) in the litter tray. It's actually an "in-box" tray like you'd use at an office desk, with a thin, hard plastic cutting board like you'd use in the kitchen on the bottom with the bedding of choice over top of it. A little bedding leaks out (or gets pushed out by a fat piggies bottom when he's trying to sleep in it!) from the small holes in the tray but it's not too much of a mess. The rest of the cage is covered with a double layer of big bath towels so poops, bedding, and bits of hay are easy to shake off before doing laundry. Almost all of the wee makes it into the litter tray and it's only been in the cage for 2 months now.

My newest piggie has a habit of weeing in one corner already, so I think it will be easy to tuck a litter tray in that corner and get him in the habit of using it.