Guinea pigs need far more room than most pet-shop cages give them. Enter your females and males, one pair or a whole herd, and we will work out the floor space and how to split them into enclosures. Sows and boars are counted separately, because they need to be kept apart to stop interbreeding.
If you keep many pigs, the two things that matter most are space and keeping the sexes apart. Guinea pigs breed fast and a sow can be pregnant again within hours of giving birth, so unneutered boars and sows must live in separate enclosures. A single neutered boar can live happily with a group of sows.
Rather than one enormous cage, a herd is housed as several groups. Same-sex groups of up to about six work well; all-male groups need extra space and plenty of hides to keep the peace. Sex and separate babies by around three weeks, when they can start to breed.
Skip tall multi-level 'ferret' cages: guinea pigs are ground dwellers and can hurt themselves on ramps. One big, open floor is what they want, and a C&C (cubes and coroplast) cage is the easy, affordable way to build a row of them.
