3 Essential Bits Of Advice For Exercising Your Pet Guinea Pigs

As with most pets, guinea pigs need to stay healthy and active. The best way to provide this exercise is simply to let them scurry about unrestricted in a large, open space. This area can be indoors or outdoors, but either way it's important to follow these tips to unsure the safety of your pets:

1. Make Sure They Are Contained

Guinea pigs can get very excitable when let loose to explore, and they will often attempt to find their way inside all sorts of nooks, crannies, and gaps that they find. In fact, if you aren't paying attention, you might discover that your cavies have disappeared inside a sofa, behind a bookcase, or under your television!

In order to prevent your pets wriggling their way into one of these tiny spaces, and possibly getting themselves into a dangerous place, you should watch them closely while they are playing. Better still, you could put them in a specially designed run, which is a bit like a big cage, to make sure they don't escape.

2. Make Sure They Are Comfortable

Although we sometimes don't realise it, the carpets and rugs of our homes can actually be fairly dangerous to guinea pigs. Things such as loose stones, which we barely notice, can be quite painful when walked over with guinea pigs' soft paws, and can also be very dangerous if they pick them up and chew on them.

Before you let your pets out to scurry around, you should give their exercise space a thorough once over to make sure it is clear of spiky objects. Then lay a cloth or some newspaper on the surface for them to run on. This helps by providing a soft surface, and also soaks up any little accidents they might have while running around!

3. Keep Them Away From Potential Hazards

Ask most pet lovers, and they will be able to tell you of a time when one of their animals ate its way through an electrical cable. Besides the fact that this can be very inconvenient to you, it can also be potentially hazardous to your guinea pig. Clear your pets' running space of all wires and cables before you let them out.

Other animals can be a big hazard to guinea pigs. If you do own another pet, such as a cat or dog, it is essential to keep them in a different room whilst your pigs are exercising.