Pigs At Play
Adding Fun, Exercise & Interaction
to Your Guinea Pig’s Routine

By Whitney Potsus

Are your guinea pigs bored?
If they’re spending 24/7 in their cage, with outings only for lap time with you, they’re guaranteed to be bored. And maybe even a little pudgy. And maybe a little less interactive with you and your family.
Many new owners don’t know that guinea pigs benefit greatly from out-of-cage playtime, preferably on a daily basis. Playtime gives you a chance to interact with your pigs, setting up interesting playscapes for them to explore, hand feeding them healthy treats, and even just sitting by the play area and talking with them. A good play area provides ample room for a good run, games of "chase" and "hide and seek," and general rummaging about for treats and such. It also gives them a much-needed change of scenery from their cage, which contributes to good psychological health.
Veterinarians and experienced guinea pig owners will tell you that guinea pigs need to get out for at least a couple of hours a day, every day. Owners also will tell you that guinea pig playtime is good for the humans as well; even if you’re not playing with your pigs the whole time, there’s something relaxing about curling up with a good book or a good movie nearby while your guinea pigs entertain themselves.

Building A Play Area

Play time starts with an enclosed play area — a space that gives guinea pigs plenty of room to run and romp without risk of finding, biting, or getting tangled up in electrical wires and without risk of getting stuck under or behind furniture and appliances. This means that the play area needs to be fully enclosed.
The fence. The play area, at minimum, should be the same size as the cage but preferably 1.5 to 2 times larger than the cage (or even larger, if you have the space). You want the fence to be high enough to prevent pigs from getting loose, but not so high that it looks like you’re trying to contain a Labrador puppy.
You can create the perimeter of the play area using either the small pet fences sold at pet stores (you may need to buy two or three to create a large enough play area) or using Neat Cubes (available at places like Target and Linens & Things). The Neat Cubes provide more flexibility for building a play area, letting you create one that’s long and rectangular, L-shaped, U-shaped, or a just a really large square. Just fasten the cube squares together (with the accompanying round connectors) as you would for storage cubes or for C&C cages.
If you have baby guinea pigs, Neat Cubes, similar storage solutions, and many pet fence products are not suitable for them until they are several months old! The open spaces in these products are large enough that a baby guinea pig could get through and escape, or could get partway through before getting stuck — and getting hurt. For the few months that they're that little, use storage cube solutions that use mesh panels instead of grids. Later, when the babies are older and bigger, you can replace the mesh grids with the wire grids and move the mesh grids off to another purpose.
The play area floor. Start by purchasing an inexpensive piece of vinyl flooring remnant (from Home Depot and other stores) and cut it to the desired size for your play area, with a couple of inches to spare all the way around. This creates a solid surface for your pigs to play on, and protects your carpets and bare floors from the moisture that would otherwise soak through the towels and potentially stain your floors.
On top of the flooring remnant place old bath towels, lightweight cotton or fleece blankets, or yardage of fleece or terry cloth from your nearby fabric store. These materials are washable, soft, warm, and give your guinea pigs' feet needed traction while they play. Wash these materials at least once a week in warm or hot water and fragrance-free detergent.
Next, you need to fill the play area with toys.

Objects Of Entertainment

Play areas need things that cater to guinea pigs' instincts to tunnel, explore, and hide. These objects do not have to be fancy or expensive, though you’ll want to maximize the benefits of playtime by providing different items and toys than what your pigs have on a regular basis in their cage.
-  Take a paper grocery bag, cut a hole out of at least one side, and lay the open bag in the play area, creating both a tunnel and a hideaway.
 - Cut the bottoms out of empty super-sized oatmeal containers (and remove the plastic ring typically found at the top of the containers) to create usable, chewable, disposable tunnels.
 - Purchase the large-sized Chube or Chewbular tunnels, which are colorful, chewable, and disposable. These are perfect for even the pudgiest adult guinea pigs.
 - Purchase PVC pipe or landscape tubing, both of make for washable tunnels. Both are available at places like Home Depot, typically at half the price of the plastic tunnels found in pet stores. You can often find Y- and T-shaped tubes, as well as elbow (curved) and straight tubes. Where adult guinea pigs often outgrow the diameter of the plastic Funnels in pet stores, most of the landscape tubes and PVC pipes are wide enough to accommodate all but the pudgiest pigs.
 - Fiddle Sticks tunnels/houses, which are big enough to accommodate a couple of snoozing guinea pigs.
 - Fleece and fabric tunnels, tents, cozy cups, and cozy sacks. You can make your own, or purchase them; they're often found in the same aisle as ferret supplies.
- Take a small paper bag, cut random holes on the top and sides, and then stuff it with hay (preferably something different than what they ordinarily have in their cage).
 - Take a new, clean plastic dishpan, cut one or two holes at opposite ends, and turn the dishpan over to create a sizable combination hidey house and tunnel that’s washable and affordable.
 - Take a segment of a wrapping paper tube, cut random holes in it, then stuff it with hay or with lettuce leaves. (Wrapping paper tubes typically do not have the glue on them that paper towel and toilet paper tubes do.)
The Critter Connection guinea pig rescue also has illustrated lists of recommended play area items at www.squidoo.com/guineapigconnection and http://astore.amazon.com/ ctguineapigrescue-20 that include items not mentioned here.
As your budget will allow, have a variety of toys that you can swap out every few weeks to give your pigs new combinations of toys to entertain themselves with. You’ll have as much fun watching them respond to your creative ideas for their playscape as they’ll have playing in it!