How Often Do Guinea Pigs Poop? [What You Should Expect]

Clearing up poop is never fun. But it is a natural part of ownership. But what can you expect as a Guinea Pig owner? How often and how much can you expect your pets to go? I spend some time researching the bowel movements of these social rodents to find out!

So, how often do Guinea Pigs Poop? Guinea Pigs poop regularly throughout the day, with as many as 100 droppings being laid daily. They are known to poop a lot compared to other pets. However, the amount your Guinea Pig poops will depend on a number of factors, including diet, exercise, age and weight.

While Guinea Pigs are certainly poopers; a lot depends on how much hay (and fiber) they eat and quickly they are able to digest it!

Equally, pooping is something that will naturally range from one Guinea Pig to the next. This is why it can be particularly challenging to monitor at first; especially when keeping multiple together.

Nevertheless, becoming familiar with how often a Guinea Pig should go will help you to set your expectations, outline your cleaning regimen, and know what is normal and what could be a problem.

So, be sure to keep on reading to find out all the information you will need to know. Despite it not being the most exciting of topics, its definitely an important one!

Do Guinea Pigs Poop A Lot?

How much a Guinea Pig poops depends on a number of factors. These include but are not limited to diet, exercise levels, age and weight. You will notice that pooping can change over the course of your Guinea Pigs life, and will vary depending on their diet and lifestyle factors.

Irregardless, all Guinea Pigs are renowned for pooping a lot. You just need to head into various Guinea Pig forums and you will see numerous topics from Guinea Pig Owners whereby they are concerned about the frequency and the amount being produced.

Guinea Pigs are like a lot of other rodents in the respect that they poop when they sleep, eat, feel comfortable or need to go.

There are no warnings and a Guinea Pig generally liked to poop throughout the day instead of specific times (which is a known thing with Humans).

While its difficult to give you clear and specific times and quantities, if your Guinea Pig is eating continuously throughout the day, their output should be reflective of the amount that they consume.

More hay is renowned to result in more poop as the fiber and roughage passes through their digestive system. Logically, the more food they consume the more they should poop.

Therefore, it follows that if you start to feed your Guinea Pig more food, or change their diet in some way, you can expect to see a change in their pooping quantity and frequency.

Where Do Guinea Pigs Poop?

For the most part, Guinea Pigs are often housed within a cage. As such, you will likely find that your Guinea Pig is pooping somewhere within this environment.

If you regularly take your Guinea Pig out for a walk, sometimes you will find that they deposit on the ground/floor but this will vary Guinea Pig to Guinea pig, how long they have been out of the cage, the time of the day etc.

Some Guinea Pigs are naturally comfortable with pooping at any time and wherever they may be. For others, they are a lot more specific and like to visit the same location.

You’ll often find that some Guinea Pigs pigs tend to navigate to a specific area of their cage to poop.

As such, litter boxes are an option and there are a lot of great and affordable litter boxes available on Amazon (both reusable and disposable).

For some Guinea Pigs, using a Litter Box will not be an issue and you can effectively place it within the location your Guinea Pig likes to poop.

For the most part they will continue to do their business in this location, but within the litter box.

Even if your Guinea Pig does not regularly poop in the same place, a lot of Guinea Pig owners report that you can train them to use a Litter Box.

Failing this, a couple of other great options for clearing poop away quickly, hygienically and promptly include:

• Using a handheld vacuum (the Bissell product on Amazon is particularly effective and also comes with other additional accessories great for tidying up after Guinea Pigs!).
• Using Fleece Bedding across the cage, which you can regularly place into the washing. (this is an example of a widely used product on Amazon)
• Potty Training your Guinea Pigs to poop in the same place (section to follow beneath)

Thankfully, most Guinea Pigs will not poop while being held!

How To Potty Train A Guinea Pig

Training your Guinea Pig will take some time and patience, but the benefits are there for you as their owner and also for your Guinea Pigs well-being.

Their cage will be much more hygienic, will smell less and will require a lot less cleaning.

The key to training a Guinea Pig to defecate in the same place is teaching the behavior so it becomes natural to them.

Here are the steps to take if you are looking to potty train your Guinea Pig:

Step #1: Get A Litter Box and Place It in a Dark Area.

Guinea Pigs are naturally wild animals, and have a long history and have survived due to their inherent tendency to watch out for predators. As such, it comes natural to a Guinea Pig to go to the toilet in the dark (away and hidden from potential predators).

So, an excellent way to potty train them is to keep the area where you want them to go to the toilet darker than the rest of the cage. This is where you should place a Litter Box (like this).

The darker the better, so you can always use lamps to create this illusion. It also serves a double purpose as you can shine light on parts of the cage you do not want your Guinea Pig to poop (like in an area they generally sleep).

Additionally, Guinea Pigs are renowned for pooping where they eat. So placing their food bowls within the dark area is also a wise idea.

In doing these two things, you’ll soon start to notice your Guinea Pig defecating in the designated and dark areas (and less sporadically over the cage).

In time, this location will become familiar, and they’ll start to wand over naturally when its time to go.

Just be sure not to move this place once set up. If you need to, refrain from changing it too often or you’ll need to start over again.

Step #2 Use Bedding

Another advanced tactic to try is adding bedding to the litter box. If you can get your Guinea Pig to poop here, this will eradicate the need for using fleece liners across all of/most of your cage.

With fleece liners, you would need to regularly take them out and wash them. However, if you can contain the poop in one area (and giving your Guinea Pig all it needs in one place), fleece liners become redundant.

To do this, you will first need to add your Guinea Pig bedding into a wide container (like this). You would then place this container into the dark area you have created in the cage.

Then, you would need to add your litter tray (which is of course where your Guinea Pigs will poop) to the container.

Next, you would need to add some newspaper underneath the bedding and place an Igloo/Tunnel (like this) on top for them to sleep.

When it is time to clean, you can take out the entire container and remove all the poop on it. Then, all you need to do is replace the newspaper. That’s it!

You have essentially created a calm, relaxing and clean environment that you can keep clean easily and quickly.

When Is Pooping a Problem?

A healthy Guinea Pig will eat regularly throughout the day and will be sure to consume a lot of hay, vegetables and any other feed that you provide. As such, their bowel movements will be frequent.

If your Guinea Pig stops eating, is pooping less than normal, or the poop produced appears excessive, smells different or stronger to normal, is a different color or changes constancy and is generally more runny, this could indicate that they are poorly and are suffering from Stomach and Digestion problems.

There are many potential causes but ones to look out for incorrect diet (eating too many fruits for example), dental problems, a recent change of diet that was too abrupt, or a viral infection.

Here are some of the things you can do to ensure your Guinea Pig remains healthy and has a fully robust digestion with adequate pooping:

• Ensure your Guinea Pig is eating sufficient hay and other high fiber foods.
• Make sure your Guinea Pig has access to plenty of fresh water
• Do not change their diet too quickly
• Be sure not to give too many fruits or sensitive foods too often
• Ensure you routinely take your Guinea Pig for health checkups.
• Ensure your Guinea Pig has regular dental examinations
• Regularly clean your Guinea Pigs cage to ensure it is clean and free from bacteria.
• Maintain overall good hygiene standards for your Guinea Pig(s) .

A healthy guinea pig’s poop will consist of small, hard pellets and be dark in color.

Here is an example of two poops side by side. The picture on the left shows poop from a Guinea Pig with a good diet vs one without enough good quality hay and vegetables:

In Summary

Guinea Pigs naturally poop a lot. Not only do they poop frequently, but they also poop in large quantities.

While this does differ from Guinea Pig to Guinea Pig, you should expect that cleaning is part and parcel of owning one/several as pets.

Thankfully there are things that you can do to help manage and clean Guinea Poop from the cage. Potty training is an excellent exercise, that may take time and patience but can lead to a more hygienic and cleaner cage in time.

Lastly, if you have any concerns with your Guinea Pigs Poop – too much, not enough, or just not as it should be – visit the vets and get your Guinea Pigs examined. There may be a wider issue that needs investigating.