comments:
Hey there, Thank you for taking her! You've done a good job meeting her most urgent needs for hay and water. Your next priorities will then be to build her a larger cage, and get her a friend as others mentioned. Make sure to 100% verify that she is female, and also 100% verify that the friend you get is also female (pregnancy would most likely be fatal to her at her age). For females, aim for at least 10 square feet space as others mentioned. Check out C&C cages, that is the most popular cage style https://www.cagetopia.com/ - you can DIY your own custom cage using metal storage cube grids, which you can get at some furniture stores or online (for example: https://www.amazon.ca/AmazonBasics-Cube-Wire-Storage-Shelves/dp/B0735GRJXY ) If you are asking about suggestions to not use plastic because you want to reduce environmental impact, you can reuse coroplast yard signs as the cage base. For example, I used discarded election signs for mine - it is the same material as the coroplast you buy at hardware stores commonly used for cage bases. There are also all sorts of ways you can DIY cages and tunnels. For example, I got a metal record-organizing rack from the thrift store that made an awesome tunnel my pigs liked to sleep in. You can also DIY all sorts of tents and blanket fort-style hideys using towels, fleece blankets, etc, and thrift stores are a great source of those raw materials. I would also strongly urge you to put a sheet of fleece over top of the puppy pad. It will be softer on their fet (so they aren't directly touching the pee) and prevent them from trying to eat the plastic. Guinea pigs often develop a taste for soft plastic and there are many many stories of guinea pigs eating the plastic of puppy pads, which is a risk for obstructing their bowels. Personally I prefer a system without disposable puppy pads - I use towel or Uhaul furniture pads (recycled denim) as the absorbent base layer under the fleece, and the fleece wicks the pee down to the absorbent layer. For all the other details of guinea pig care, here are two excellent care guides that I highly recommend: https://www.guinealynx.info/healthycavy.html https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk/threads/getting-started-essential-information-for-new-owners.196874/ Hope that helps!