Guinea Pig Product Review: Small Pet Select Loofah rolls

While Valentine's Day is still a couple weeks away, there's never a wrong time to show love for your guinea pig! Whether it's a nice pet on our heads, or a new chew toy to sink our teeth into, gestures of affection are almost always appreciated.

Today, we're reviewing another toy from Small Pet Select to let you know if its a good way to show your piggy appreciation: the Loofah roll! They describe this toy as follows: "Loofah is nature's floss for rabbits and piggies!  Terrific for giving those teeth a great workout, loofah also provides a totally different and interesting chew texture for the buns and the guinea piggies."

Will we find it as interesting to chew on as they claim?

Bite!

Munch!

Sniff!

Nibble!

We got to say that this was a pretty cool texture, and it was in fact fun to chew on! But what exactly is a loofah (also spelled "luffa")? According to Wikipedia, it is the fruit of a vine plant which "may be allowed to mature and used as a bath or kitchen sponge after being processed to remove everything but the network of xylem fibers." The family of plants that it belongs to includes many foods that guinea pigs can eat, including squash, watermelon, and cucumber. In addition, no safety concerns were mentioned on the guinea pig forums that we saw, and we have a generally favorable view of Small Pet Select as a company. Therefore, we're pretty sure loofah (or "luffa") is safe.

We also looked at other reviews for this product, and wanted to note a couple things that others mentioned:

1. "I've used it to stuff healthy treats... into. This keeps him working to get to the treats, which he can smell through the loofah!"--Nice idea which could make this toy even more fun.
2. "This is a massive hair magnet! My bunnies like them, but I find I toss them out because they get all gross with bunny hair. I've yet to find a good way to remove bunny hair from a loofah!"--We haven't experienced this with ours, but wanted to note this as a possible problem anyway. (Maybe it's a long-hair vs. short-hair issue?)

We give Small Pet Select Loofah rolls 5/5 stars!

Guinea Pig Product Review: Small Pet Select Meadow Ball

'Tis the season to buy cool stuff for your loved ones! And yes, that should include your guinea pigs. We are part of your family, after all, and if you get us the right gift, you'll see as much excitement on our faces as a human child when they rip open their gifts on whichever holiday you celebrate. But how will you know what the right gift is? Fear not, because we have guinea pig product reviews going back years now, and we're about to add yet another one!

Today, we're reviewing another toy from Small Pet Select's toy sampler: the Meadow Ball. Small Pet Select describes the Meadow Ball as: "Lucious meadow grass, all twisted and wrapped into a ball of fun goodness. What is better than a treat you can eat and play with too? Healthy high fiber, totally safe. This toy is great for chewing and tossing, and you might even see more than one cavy playing with it at a time." Sounds great from the description, but will this toy be a holiday-do or a holiday don't?

Do I want to chew on this?

I think I do want to chew on this.

And give it a little toss! Wow, the description was right.

Similar to the Honeysuckle Ring, I was interested in playing with this toy, but Lola wouldn't even come near it. (Come on, Lola. Live a little!) However, I didn't play with it as long as the ring. Something about the ring was just more fun to chew on, and your neck muscles get tired pretty quickly trying to toss this thing around.

So what's the verdict? We give it 3.5/5 stars--it's a holiday-maybe!

Guinea Pig Product Review: Small Pet Select Honeysuckle Ring

Hi loyal readers! We have to apologize for not filling your lives with tales from our cage lately. It's a mistake we're fixing right now, because we're finally back! Today, we're reviewing Small Pet Select's Honeysuckle Ring, which we got as part of their the toy sampler. We've often been underwhelmed by the guinea pig toys we've gotten in the past, but we think this one is a keeper! (At least, I do. Lola didn't seem too interested in it.)

This seems fun to chew on.

And fun to step on.

Look what I can do!

Lola missed out on all the fun. Too bad for her! I'll give the Honeysuckle Ring 4/5 stars; I think it's lots of fun, but apparently not every piggy thinks so (or will even give it a chance to see if it's fun!).

Guinea Pig Cuddle Cloning

We recently did a post on guinea pig cloning--something that's not quite available yet for guinea pigs, but is available for dogs and cats, so it's probably not too far off in the future. Until then, there is another option for those who can't wait: a guinea pig Cuddle Clone! As their website explains:

"We make soft, adorable, customized stuffed-animal versions of people’s pets called Cuddle Clones. All you have to do is submit at least one picture (although several are preferred) and choose a few customization options (eye color, ear position, tail position) and we’ll send you your very own Cuddle Clone."

Unlike ViaGen Pets, Cuddle Clone does offer a guinea pig "cloning" option:

Here is Bear and his Cuddle Clone.

Gypsea & Cuddle Clone.

Like real cloning. Cuddle Cloning seems expensive. (At least, we think it is. Even after all this time, it's hard to wrap our minds around that money stuff that humans care so much about.) The regular price for a Cuddle Clone is $249, although they're current having a limited summer sale of $149 for a guinea pig. Even though this is a lot less than the $25,000-$50,000 that actual cloning costs, we still don't think our humans will go for it. It's always an option for the future, though, since you just need pictures rather than genetic samples!

Product Review: Kaytee layer cakes

Today we're reviewing Kaytee layer cakes, which we received through Piggies Paradise. These are chew toys that are supposed to "provide a hard source for gnawing and trimming teeth." You may be wondering if Buffy can fairly review a product like this when she's feeling sick, but don't worry. The medicine is helping her feel a bit more like her old self, and I saw her chewing on the log chew toy recently. If these chew toys are any good, she'll probably want to chew on them, too.

Wood chew toys are generally safe as long as they aren't shiny or smooth, which indicates they're coated in a sealant.

Doesn't look like sealants were used.

We're not interested. Got any food for us?

These chew toys just don't interest us. They do look nice, though, so we're thinking we'll leave them in the cage as holiday decorations. We give Kaytee layer cakes 2 out 5 stars!

Toys for Guinea Pigs: Toilet Paper Roll Pyramids

A while back, we learned that one of our readers from Sweden runs a guinea pig blog of their own called Tresmågrisar, which had a toy idea we wanted to try out for ourselves: toilet paper roll pyramids. Our humans used a combination of toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls cut down to similar-sized pieces. The idea of using toilet paper / paper towel rolls as toys was also mentioned on Guinea Lynx (and previously reviewed by us), so we felt confident that cardboard rolls are safe for guinea pigs. However, we had our humans make one modification to this toy from the way our Swedish friend did theirs: while they made a paste out of flour and water to make the rolls stick together, we read that flour can lead to allergies and bloat if guinea pigs eat it, so we wanted to avoid this. Instead, our humans tried cutting up an extra toilet paper roll into thirds, cutting three grooves into each of these pieces, and then they tried to fit the main rolls into the grooves of these connector pieces:

How it looks from the back.

Then, the humans loaded bits of green pepper into each of the main rolls:

The best toys are the ones with good food in them!

Oh, I see it!

Oops.

I was a little too enthusiastic about getting that green pepper, and ended up knocking the whole thing over. The humans had to reset it.

What the heck?!

After that, the top toilet paper roll broke off and got stuck on my face when I tried get the pepper out. The humans probably should have cut slits in the rolls like last time, and put the peppers closer to the opening so we wouldn't have to put our faces as far in to reach it. Also, the human's idea of using connector rolls instead of flour paste was a good one in theory, but didn't work out too well in practice since the pyramid fell over and came apart.

We'll give this toy 3 out of 5 stars; something about the pyramid shape made this more of a fun novelty than just a single roll, but there are some design kinks that are going to have to be worked out to make this toy more enjoyable. (Feel free to share your ideas for building a better toilet paper roll pyramid in the comments!)

Toys for Guinea Pigs: Mirrors

We just realized that it's been a while since we've reviewed any toys, so we took at look at the toy ideas from Guineapigcages.com to see what we haven't tried yet. One toy idea that the humans could easily set up in our cage was a mirror.

Guineapigcages.com suggests placing the mirror "on the outside of the cage. If they are on the inside, make sure they are pet-safe." Since the humans weren't sure if the mirror was pet-safe or not, they attached it to the outside of the cage with a clip.

Hey, is that another guinea pig? Do I need to assert my dominance?

Wait, I think that's just me.

We know that there are guinea pigs out there who seem to enjoy looking at themselves in mirrors. Some will even rumblestrut, talk to, or lick their reflection. For us, there was a brief moment of novelty when we saw our reflections, and then we quickly got bored and forget it was there. We'll give mirrors 2/5 stars.

Guinea Pigs Play Basketball!

We'd like to share a cute video we found of some very smart, well trained piggies who have learned to play basketball! Watch this riveting game and cheer on your favorite pig!

Product Review: Prevue Hendryx Nature's Hideaway Grass Tunnel

Today we're reviewing Prevue Hendryx's Nature's Hideaway Grass Tunnel. This is a company I don't believe we've ever tried products from before, which always makes us a little nervous. We generally trust Oxbow products; we tend to like them, and even on the rare occasion we're not crazy about an Oxbow product, we at least trust them not to put anything in their products that guinea pigs obviously shouldn't have (like peanuts). But who the heck is Prevue Hendryx? We've only seen them on Amazon.com, never in pet stores. According to their website, however, "Prevue Pet Products, Inc. is the largest and oldest manufacturer of pet cages, toys and accessories in the world today, dating back to 1869." But does being around for a long time mean they know how to make good guinea pig products? Let's find out!

The description on the front of this product says: "A natural woven grass activity center for your small animal. Satisfies their natural instincts to burrow, explore and nest." As we've mentioned before, it always makes us a little nervous when products are not guinea pig-specific. It doesn't necessarily mean there's anything wrong with a product that's designed for "small animals", but it does raise red flags that it might not be appropriate in terms of size, nutrition, and so on.

The size of the product is approximately 13.5"L by 6" diameter, which should be enough for us to fit through.

Looks like we've got a new product to review.

Do we want to chew on it?

No, let's crawl through it instead!

We had fun crawling through this product, and we were just about to give it a positive review, when we decided we should double-check the materials, just to be on the safe side. The materials listed in this product are: "couch grass 98%; plant cane 1%; burlap 5%; sisal rope 5%." Couch grass seems to be fine. Plant cane appears to be "A stalk or shoot of sugar cane," and while you shouldn't feed sugar cane by itself to guinea pigs (too much sugar, as you might expect), we're guessing this might be okay in this product since it's only 1%. Some people have expressed concern about sisal rope as well, saying it could unravel after chewing, although we're not clear why that's a concern. (Perhaps because we might eat it afterwards?) Burlap, however, turns out to be bad news: "The danger is that it will wad up in their digestive tracts and cause a blockage." (This is probably also why the sisal rope unraveling was a concern.) The humans quickly took this thing away from us, considering themselves lucky that we didn't eat any burlap. Just to be on the safe side, they're going to watch us to make sure we're eating and pooping normally.

Although the humans clearly should have done more research before letting us try this thing, I think they feel bad enough as it is, so we'll let them off the hook. Prevue Hendryx, on the other hand, should be ashamed of themselves. You've been in business since 1869, and still don't know what's safe to put in guinea pig products? We give Prevue Hendryx's Nature's Hideaway Grass Tunnel 1/5 stars.

Product Review: All Living Things Willow Tunnel

Today we're reviewing All Living Things Willow Tunnel. The package for this one says that it "encourages your pet's natural instincts to play and chew," and "offers comfort and security." As far as we can tell, willow is safe for guinea pigs to chew on, and other guinea pigs like to chew on them. But will we?

Make sure you get the right size. These things come in different sizes for different pets.

Buffy was the first to check it out, but wasn't impressed.

The humans put down some pellets inside the tunnel so we'd check it out. That got our attention! 

After the pellets were gone, we lost interest in the tunnel, and decided to search the floor for more pellets.

Once we were convinced there weren't any more pellets, I decided to give the tunnel another chance. 

And you know what? I kind of like it!

After floor time was over, the humans decided to put the willow tunnel inside our cage. I immediately went inside it again. I don't know why Buffy and Broccoli aren't interested in this thing! I think it's great, but apparently, guinea pigs opinion vary on this one. I suppose I'll give it 3/5 to reflect their lack of interest, although it would get a higher rating if it were just up to me.

Toys For Guinea Pigs: Ping Pong Balls

Ping pong balls are something humans play with. Apparently, they hold up some paddles and hit the ball back and forth until it falls on the floor. That's it. Seriously. Humans are weird, aren't they? The fine folks over at Guineapigcages.com came up with an idea of how guinea pigs could use ping pong balls that's a little less silly than how humans use them: you can put them in our cage for us to push them around.

Humans, if we don't like this toy, feel free to hit it with paddles to your heart's content.

Hmmm... Do I like this?

No, I don't think so. I'm going to chew on my mat instead.

We're sorry to say that we had no interest in this toy. Feel free to remove these things from our cage and hit them back and forth. 1/5 stars.

Products Review: Super Pet Bunny Flip 'N' Toss Carrot

Today we're going to review Super Pet Bunny Flip 'N' Toss Carrot. Despite the word "bunny" being in the name of this product, the front of the package claims it is also for guinea pigs.

Is that a carrot? We love carrots!

Wait, that's just orange and green rope.

That's boring. I'm going to drink some water now.

In fairness, many of the bunnies who tried this thing seem to like it. However, this blog comes from a guinea pig perspective, and from the perspective of these three piggies, this is one boring toy! We also find it highly disappointing that this was not a real carrot, which we would have enjoyed much more. We give this toy 1/5 stars.

Product Review: Super Pet Apple Orchard Sticks

The nice thing about the pignic that we recently attended is that they had some guinea pig accessories on-sale at a deep discount. While we personally don't care about money (Can we eat it? Then we don' care...), we know that our humans complain if they spend too much of it, and they're more likely to get us stuff if they don't have to spend too much of it, so we care about money indirectly. Thanks to the pignic, today we're trying Super Pet Apple Orchard Sticks.

Hmm... Doesn't look very fun.

I see them, but is there anything else to chew on?

No? Oh well. Let's just eat hay, then.

Bad choice, humans. These sticks are totally boring, and we give them 1/5 stars. (Note that like the music chews, these things are supposed to going in the Super Pet Ka-Bob dispenser, which we don't have. However, we can't imagine liking these things any more if they were dangling in front of us.)

Guinea Pig Armor

Those of you who keep up with guinea pig news probably heard about this already, but we wanted to share this in case anyone missed it. Someone had a really cool fundraising auction on behalf of the Metropolitan Guinea Pig Rescue, our local guinea pig rescue, where they sold a handmade suit of guinea pig armor!

That piggy looks safe. I'd probably still run and hide from unexpected noises, even with armor, though!

If the winning bidder on this armor happens to be a reader, feel free to send us the armor and we'll be happy to do a product review of it. :-)

Product Review: Sushi Chews All Natural

We've been thinking about the toys we've tried, and we had a revelation: there are really only a few general categories of guinea pig toys:

• There are toys that hold your hay, like socks and toilet paper rolls. 
• There are also toys you can run through, like oatmeal containers and crinkle tunnels. 
• Then there are toys that you can chew on, like music chews and Snak Shak logs. (Although the Snak Shak log was a toy you can run through and one you can chew on, so I guess it really falls into two categories.) 

Today we're reviewing a toy that definitely falls into the chewing toy category: Ware Manufacturing brand Sushi Chews.

Sushi for guinea pigs? Well, I hear everyone on Instragram loves sushi...

Anyone interested in trying this new chew toy?

Okay, I'll bite. (Literally!)

That's a boring toy. I much prefer chewing on this Snak Shak log!

In fairness, the package advertises that this toy fits onto a "Treat-K-Bob", which apparently allows you to hang several treats on a hook. Honestly, I can't imagine us liking this chew toy any more if it was hanging versus on the floor. I gave it a try, and we're just not that into it. We'll give Ware Manufacturing Sushi Chews 1.5/5 stars.

Product Review: Super Pet Crinkle Tunnel

To be honest, we haven't thought very highly of many of the Super Pet products we've tried in the past. Their music chews were boring, and their leashes and exercise balls could potentially injure your guinea pig. However, this time, they finally did something right with the Super Pet Crinkle Tunnel.

At first, we were scared to try it, but the humans put a few pellets inside the tunnel, which gave us the courage to try it out.

This is pretty fun!

We should point out that the tunnel is too big to fit in our cage, so it's mainly a floor time toy for us. Also, our tunnel is brand-new and we haven't had much time to make a mess in it, but rest assured that we will. When that happens, we're a little concerned that we'll have to put up with our humans complaining about how hard it is to clean up after us. Others who have used this thing have said that it's hard to wash, and recommended an alternative on Etsy. (If anyone tries it, please let us know what you think!) We'll give the Super Pet Crinkle Tunnel 4.5/5 stars!

Toys for Guinea Pigs: Tissue Boxes

One thing that humans like to say is: "one man's trash is another man's treasure." If you ask us, we don't get what the big deal is with treasure. Gold and gems don't look tasty or particularly fun to chew on, so we're not sure why humans care so much about them. 

Despite this, we get the point of the saying: just because you don't want it doesn't mean that no one will find it tasty or fun to chew on. Which brings us to our latest toy review (idea courtesy of guineapigcages.com): tissue boxes. You probably throw your tissue boxes out after you're done with them, but have you stopped to consider that they might be fun for your guinea pig? 

For piggies, this is like a treasure chest!

I flipped it and made a cave!

The humans weren't sure if we would want to hide in the tissue box or eat out of it, so they put a little Carefresh along the bottom and some hay on top. We weren't interested in using the tissue box as a hide-away because it's too small. We generally don't like it if there isn't enough room for us to turn around comfortably. However, as a food dispenser, it was a nice change of pace. Even though we wouldn't put our whole bodies in, we didn't mind reaching in with our faces to pull out choice bits of hay. And for Buffy, it provided a new platform to climb on top of. We'll give tissue boxes 3.5/5 stars.

Toys for Guinea Pigs: Hay Socks

Today the humans found a new guinea pig toy idea they wanted to try with us: hay socks. Hay socks are exactly what they sound like--you take a clean sock and fill it with hay.

What is this thing? Sniff-sniff...

Old socks that your humans won't miss are best; the sock they gave us actually had a hole worn in them, which was good because it gave us another opening to eat the hay from.

Wish you would have given us a sock with two or three extra holes in it!

Later on, Broccoli sat down on the hay sock like it was a giant cushion. This is one of the best toy ideas our humans have had yet (although I'm not sure if it beats the watermelon house). 5/5 stars!

Floor Time Fun in Piggy City

As we've already explained, floor time is important for mental stimulation and exercise. However, floor time can also be scary for some guinea pigs because we're leaving our familiar cage for less familiar territory. Following behind the dominant pig can help relieve some of this anxiety. Another thing that can help is if your human sets up what we are calling a "Piggy City." What is a Piggy City, you ask? Well, if you look at a human city, you'll see that they have buildings with streets between them. You can take the stuff out of our cages during floor time and create a similar setup.

What street am I on? I wish I had a GPS. I'd make this a "favorite!"

You see, we guinea pigs are prey animals, and hiding places make us feel safe. We don't like being in open spaces. You can tell us all you want that we're safe in your living room, but we don't care. The day we let our guard down could be the day that there's hawk hiding behind your bookshelf!

I feel much safer here than I do in open spaces!

Next time you give your piggies floor time, consider giving them a Piggy City to play in!

Product Review: Super Pet Music Chews Modern

If you look at most of the toys we've reviewed up to this point, most of them have been homemade toys, like oatmeal containers and paper bags. Today, we're going to review a professionally-made toy: Super Pet Music Chews Modern, which we got as part of our prize for winning the carrot-carving contest.

Uh-oh. Guinea pigs are just one of several animals this product is made for. That's never a good sign.

What the heck is that thing? Doesn't look like fun.

What's that in my food bowl? Oh, it's that same boring toy from before. You moved it. Great.

The back of the package says: "Simply slide any of our wide assortment of chews onto a Super Pet Ka-Bob dispenser." We admit that we didn't have this dispenser in our cage, but we can't imagine liking this thing any more if it was hanging down. Sorry, but this toy is just not fun for us. We had no interest in chewing on it. Maybe hamsters and rabbits would like it better, but there should not be guinea pigs on the front of their package. 1/5 stars.