I want my guinea pigs to live in a palace

[DeeSpark]

But they can't.

I think my guinea pigs deserve better care and more attention. The last few months, I've been concentrating on dogs, the old cat, school, and well they've been kind of neglected. They get fed everyday, always have grass to eat, always have water, cage gets cleaned, I make sure they're healthy. But when pumba died I sort of felt responsible somehow, and felt like life could have been better for him. I promised the other 2 that I would make their lives better. They don't speak English, but I still don't want to break my promise.

I want to make them a bigger cage, c&c. At the moment they're only in the largest pet shop cage I can get, and get plenty of out door time in the pen. But it's been raining, parents won't let them have floor time in the house and the cage is small.

Also their bedding, I was told I should change from organic sugar cane mulch to something better. I can't use fleece, and care fresh is to expensive. What do you guys think? What are Aspen shavings like?
I want them to have a good bedding.

I don't feed hay, I feed lots of grass. But now I want hay because it's good if I can't get much grass, and they can burrow in it. But how long does hay last for?

They've had to eat crappy pellots, because I couldn't get anything good. Found a place that sells oxbow though, so will hopefully get money for that soon.

Do you guys think that once I make a big enough cage, I should add a top layer?
Oh and also, I want to talk to mum about moving them back into a more visited area, rather then in the office where people don't really go into.
I don't have the money for all this yet, but when I do, I want to improve the pigs life, but advice from you guys is always helpful  

[Vanilla eXee]

Bedding: When I had my boys I did a 2 week test on each type of bedding. I found the most economical of the safe ones to be aspen. It worked really well and it was cheap enough to be able to afford changing the cage every week.

Hay: If you have farms nearby, you can usually buy a bale of hay for cheap. I used to get bales of timothy for $12 per bale, which would last quite a while for 3 boys stored properly.

Second level: As long as the first level is big enough, you really don't need a second since GPs aren't the best vertical climbers.  

[DeeSpark]

Thank you! Aspen is a bit hard to get here, so I think i'm going to try a few different beddings.

Thinking of places to put the cage, have a few places in mind  

[Gabrielle_AnimalLuver]

I feel the same way about my rats. They have one of the largest rat/ferret cages I have ever seen. But they NEED free roam time and they need activities to do and the past few months haven't been great. I stopped giving them something to do every night. In fact, they only get a puzzle like once a week. I did try to hang Cowboy's kong like a bird toy I'd seen. But rat teeth are sharp and they were going to just destroy it and I wasn't sure if they'd swallow the rubber or if it was safe for them. Plus, I always tell them, "oh, you'll get to run around tomorrow" and then tomorrow comes and I have something to do and I can't supervise a free roam period.

For bedding I use towels. I dunno if this would work with your cage or piggies but what you could do is buy some velcro at walmart, sew it on the towel and then get a sticky one to put along the bottom of the cage. Then you can take it off to wash it and not worry about them digging it up. That is what I meant to do with mine but I don't have a sewing machine so I find it works okay with stuff like the litter box and their houses to hold it in place. It doesn't last as long as traditional bedding. I find it works best if I switch towels every 2nd day. Plus empty litter every day. It takes much less time tough, than scooping stuff out. And it's okay to go longer, but my cage is right next to my bed so I don't like it to smell at all. Plus I figure if I can smell it, they can too, and if I can smell it, there's probably ammonia in the air they are breathing.

For food I do get the oxbow blocks. But I also like to give left overs from dinner, the crumbs at the bottom of the cereal bags that would otherwise get tossed. I go to bulk barn and get bags of seed, grains and dried fruits. The bulk barn stuff will last me a good month, so will the blocks. So it's like, ten bucks a month for rat food maybe, but none on bedding.

It's so hard not to spoil them though. I spent almost 20 bucks on a new house that they won't even touch. I want to go spend 40 on the matching "cafe" and "restaurant" but, I just returned my 50 buck sleeping bag cause I decided I don't have that kind of disposable cash, so I have to realize that just cause the money isn't blown on stuff for me, doesn't mean I can spend it anyway.

Sorry for the super long post lol. My summer contract ended 2 weeks ago. I just got my 4% vacation pay, everything is already gone. I worked all summer just paying off my student debt. I say debt not loan cause I don't have loans I have a visa lol. So now I'm back to only working 5hrs a week. That's 200 bucks a month. But 50 for insurance, 35 for phone bill if I don't use internet on it. And Gas well, I have to try to make a tank which is around 40 bucks, last two weeks, when it normally lasts about one. I am working on getting a second job since my store can't offer me more hours. I use to do medical studies but the company moved and the other one there's still a lot of paperwork to do that I never got around too.  

[Vanilla eXee]

Gabrielle_AnimalLuver

For food I do get the oxbow blocks. But I also like to give left overs from dinner, the crumbs at the bottom of the cereal bags that would otherwise get tossed. I go to bulk barn and get bags of seed, grains and dried fruits. The bulk barn stuff will last me a good month, so will the blocks. So it's like, ten bucks a month for rat food maybe, but none on bedding.

The problem is that a lot of that bulk stuff is a no no for guinea pigs. The way their teeth are set up, they can't eat seeds because they can't crack them and a lot of people food is no good for them. I was lucky when I had my boys, I found a local farm that made their own guinea pig food because they were sick of all the crap on the market. It was the same quality as the oxbow, but cheaper. So they got that, unlimited hay, and every day they got some fresh veggies (ok, and the occasional apple!!). They were happy boys.  

[Azusanga]

Kiln dried pine is my current preference for bedding, it's highly absorbent and holds odor better than Aspen.