Guinea pigs are very social, playful animals. They require daily attention and care. It is necessary to provide them with a wide variety of toys for them to play with when they are lonely or bored. Here is a list of exciting homemade toys that your pet will love.
Socks– Everybody has at least a few pair-less socks that are lying around somewhere. Good toys to make with these socks are:
Sock pillows: Fill an old sock with hay and tie the end off. My guinea pig loves to drag these around.
Play-Socks: Find a holey sock and put it in your pets cage. He will likely run into it and stick his nose out of the holes.
Sock Stacks: Simply stack a huge pile of socks in your guinea pigs habitat. Watch they climb up and jump down. Geronimo!
Sock Hammock: Much like the popular ferret’s toy, this is just a little hanging bed. To make, cut open a sock so that it is in the shape of a square. Using a hole puncher, make four openings in the corners of the sock. Tie four separate pieces of string on the corners, then join them at the top by tying them together. Attach to the top of the cage so that the bed hangs two or three inches off of the ground.
Seed Sock: Tie up a sock as you would if you were making a sock pillow. But instead of filling it with hay, fill it with seeds. Tie the sock to the top of the habitat and cut a very small hole at the bottom of the sock (the hole should be slightly larger than the seeds inside the sock). Now your pig can pull seeds out of the sock if he gets desires a crunchy treat.
Tennis Sock: Put a tennis ball in a sock without holes and tie off. He will drag it around and even toss it. Replace the sock if it rips (unless you want the ball rolling around).
Boxes N’ Bags– Guinea pigs love these to hide and play in! Your guinea pig will love these.
Boxes: You can put a plain box in the cage, or a box with out a bottom. You can stack them to build a castle, or cut them up to make a fort. You can even tape them together to make multi-level houses! Guinea pigs love boxes, so be sure to give yours some to play in.
Paper Bags: My guinea pig absolutely LOVES paper bags, and will amuse himself for hours playing in such a simple toy. I think he just likes the way that it crinkles.
Towels– These are good as make-shift beds, forts (if you hang them up in the corners of the cage), blankets, and even separators, if you want to have a wall in-between parts of the cage.
Little things for guinea pigs to roll, toss, drag, sit on/in, and look at-
Crumpled up newspaper, cat toys with bells, tennis balls, little bowls/containers (like butter tubs or lunch meat containers), mirrors, small stuffed animals, plain wooden blocks (without sealants-just plain old dull blocks), bricks (stack them), toilet paper tubes, and tissues. Tissues are my guinea pigs favorite food group.
Have fun!