How Much Time Do Guinea Pigs Need?

Guinea pigs are pretty easy to look after, compared with some other popular pets. They can't entirely look after themselves, though, and require a certain amount of regular care. You will be spending around ten to fifteen minutes a day looking after your guinea pigs. This is something that owners look forward to, as it's the 'quality time' you spend each day with your pets.

Daily contact with your guinea pigs is an important and satisfying part of pet ownership

The Basics of Looking After Guinea Pigs

GPs need feeding twice daily. This involves refilling their bowls with dry food, keeping their hay topped up, and chopping some fresh veg for them. Their water bottles should be refreshed too. Check out our Feeding Guinea Pigs page for more info on feeding guinea pigs.

Guinea pigs need to keep warm, especially in the cooler months. If they are outside, they'll need plenty of hay to burrow into to keep warm. Your guinea pig hutch can be insulated with an old carpet pulled over the top. Better still, invest in a Eglu Guinea Pig Hutch.

Guinea pigs need lots of exercise, and love nothing better than racing around their enclosures. A guinea pig house with a run attached is ideal, like the Eglu Go Guinea Pig Hutch. With this set up, you simply open the door to the run when you feed your guinea pigs each morning. If your hutch lacks an attached run, the guinea pigs will still need to stretch their legs each day in a standalone guinea pig run. If your run is outside then, the guinea pigs can be put out there each morning and then brought back indoors each evening. This gives you the opportunity to handle and cuddle your pets on a daily basis!

Cleaning out your guinea pigs’ hutch and run doesn't take too much time. If you have fewer than four guinea pigs you won't have to clean them out every day. Twice a week is plenty, with any particularly dirty areas cleaned as and when required.

Carrying out regular checks on your guinea pigs’ health will help keep them fit and well, and you may also have to wash them occasionally. These checks only take a few seconds - a quick visual once-over to make sure everything looks okay. For more info on what to look for, check out our Guinea Pig Health section.