Floortime is important to your cavy's health and fitness
Even if your guinea pigs live in an enormous cage, regular floortimes are an essential part of keeping a guinea pig happy and healthy. The most obvious benefit of floortime is exercise, but that's not the only benefit! Floortime also provides mental stimulation. Regular mental stimulation ensures your guinea pigs are smart, eager, and curious piggies.
When you should introduce floortime
Notice that I have floortime as step 5 in this guide. Guinea pigs can't really enjoy floortime if they are flooded with stress hormones and frozen in fear. Introduce floortime in a guinea pig-proofed area with plenty of hiding places. If you have a timid guinea pig, allow her time to get used to floortime by retreading parts of this guide outside of the cage rather than in it. Lure her back into the upside down hidey and carry her back to the cage whenever she enters it to teach her that she always has the ability to escape floortime if it is too scary for her. Watch the video below and to the right and see how active the guinea pigs are during floortime.
Notes for a successful floortime
The important thing is to make sure that set up and clean up is easy. If it is too difficult, you might feel unmotivated to give your guinea pigs regular floortime. You also have to guinea-pig proof the area. I recommend buying a small animal exercise pen or two to keep your guinea pig from escaping under furniture or chewing wires. If your guinea pigs are not potty trained, you'll need to protect your floor. Protect your floor with either an old sheet, newspaper, or fleece. One more consideration is to provide hiding places and escape routes for when your guinea pig gets startled or needs a break from floortime.
To the left is my go-to set up for floortime. I use a small animal exercise pen to fence off a section of the room. They also get to run through my whole living room and kitchen sometimes if nobody is using that area.
My girls are also potty trained, which is why I do not protect the carpet. Potty training in the way my girls are potty trained is only possible if you followed the force-free methods described in this taming guide; it builds on the "load up" skill. Click the button below to learn how to have your own potty trained guinea pig!