Guinea pigs are very social and playful animals. They require daily attention and care. You need to provide them with a wide variety of toys to play with when they feel lonely or bored. Here is a list of exciting homemade toys that your pet will love.
Stockings– Everyone has at least a few pairless socks lying around. Good toys to make with these socks are:
sock cushions: Fill an old sock with hay and tie off the end. My guinea pig loves dragging them.
game socks: Find a sock with a hole in it and put it in your pet’s cage. It is likely that he will run towards him and stick his nose out of the holes.
stacks of socks: Simply stack a huge pile of socks in your guinea pigs’ habitat. Watch how they go up and down. Geronimo!
sock hammock: Like the popular ferret toy, this is just a little hanging bed. To make, cut a sock into the shape of a square. Using a hole punch, make four slits in the corners of the sock. Tie four separate pieces of string at the corners, then join them at the top by tying them together. Attach to the top of the cage so the bed hangs two to three inches off the ground.
seed socks: Tie a sock like 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 in the bottom of the sock (the hole should be slightly larger than the seeds inside the sock). Now your pig can scoop the seeds out of the sock if he wants a crunchy treat.
tennis socks: Put a tennis ball in a sock without holes and tie it. It will drag it and even throw it. Replace the sock if it tears (unless you want the ball to roll).
boxes and bags– Guinea pigs love these for hide and play! Your guinea pig will love these.
boxes: You can put a simple box in the cage or a bottomless box. You can stack them to build a castle or cut them down to make a fort. You can even tape them together to make multi-level houses! Guinea pigs love boxes, so be sure to give them some to play with.
paper bags: My guinea pig absolutely LOVES paper bags and will have hours of fun playing with such a simple toy. I think he likes the way it crinkles.
Towels– These are good as makeshift beds, braces (if you hang them in the corners of the cage), blankets, and even dividers, if you want to have a wall between the cage parts.
Little things for guinea pigs to roll, toss, drag, sit and look at…
Crumpled newspapers, cat toys with bells, tennis balls, small bowls/containers (such as butter jars or deli pans), mirrors, small stuffed animals, simple wooden blocks (no sealants, just boring old blocks), bricks (stack ’em up), toilet paper tubes, and tissues. Tissues are my guinea pigs favorite food group.
Have fun!