How To Choose Guinea Pig Toys

Hi. My name's Marie. I'm the deputy manager of the Small Animal Department of Wood Green Animal Shelters in Cambridge here.

I'm going to advise you how to care for guinea pigs. I'm going to tell you how to choose guinea pig toys. Enrichment is really important for guinea pigs to keep them mentally and physically stimulated.

You need to be able to associate it as they would in the wild so running through tunnels, gracing through different types of grass and hays. The items I've got here would be able to meet these requirements. So, you have different types of willow and fruit tree wood tunnels.

They can chew this quite safely and they will really enjoy it. You often have the natural tunnels as well and they often have dried grass and they attack on to the side to be able to grace to this and they can hide in here. Guinea pigs in the wild don't naturally like to grace right out in the open so they like to know that they can shoot into tunnels and onto little rocks and things like that and amongst grass as well.

So when you're placing your toys in the accommodation, do bear that in mind. A good idea would be to place lots of hay piles all over the tunnels. Also, if you've got any plant pots at home, just place them in and out the hutch and in the run and they can have dried treats such as these.

You can have dried plantain, dried nettles and even dried mint, and these can be placed inside plant pots, dry paper bags and even your tunnels for guinea pigs to run in and out and pull them out. If you get really good quality hay, you can lay tunnels such as these onto the side and pile hay over them. That way, the guinea pigs can reach up and pull them down.

By far, the best thing for enrichment for guinea pigs is natural fresh food. Guinea pigs need to be out in the grass gracing everyday weather permitting. What you can also do is consider growing your own vegetables and herbs for your guinea pigs so you could be growing them curly cale, broccoli, all different types of cabbages, turnips and carrots.

You could grow these in plant pots and actually pop them into the accommodation as shown behind me or you could be growing this in the garden and pick them fresh everyday and scatter them around in the accommodation. That way, the guinea pigs can naturally forage for them and really enjoy it. So, that's the best way to find guinea pig toys. .