Switching guinea pigs to hemp bedding for odour

Switching to hemp bedding for odour control is one of the smartest moves guinea pig owners make — paper bedding is fine but it can get whiffy fast, especially with two pigs. Before I point you to the right product, a couple of quick questions: are your Rex pair housed indoors or outdoors, and how large is their enclosure roughly? That affects how much bedding you'll need and how often you'll be doing full changes.

That's a good-sized setup and a solid cleaning routine — the problem really is just paper bedding hitting its limit, which it does quickly with two active pigs. Hemp is genuinely in a different league for odour: the fibres absorb moisture and lock in ammonia smell far better than paper pulp. One thing to know before you switch — hemp is dustier during pouring than paper, so give it a moment to settle before your pigs go back in. Are they currently on bare paper pellets, or do you have a fleece layer on top of the paper?

Perfect — that depth is exactly right and hemp works brilliantly at that level for burrowing too, which Rex pigs tend to enjoy. My recommendation is Aubiose Hemp Bedding. It's the brand most small-animal rescues and experienced guinea pig keepers use in the UK, and for good reason: it's highly absorbent, biodegradable, and the odour suppression is noticeably better than any paper product. For a 2x4 C&C you'll want the 20kg bale — it looks like a lot but it compresses well and you'll get several full changes out of it, which makes it cost-effective compared to buying paper bedding bags repeatedly. Just buy a bale, not the smaller bags, or the per-use cost climbs quickly.

Good instinct to ask, but no — hemp is actually gentler on Rex coats than some paper bedding brands that can be a bit coarse or dusty at fibre level. Rex fur is dense and short, and the fine hemp strands don't tangle or stick the way longer fibres like hay-based bedding can. The one thing to watch with any guinea pig on hemp for the first week is that they're eating and moving normally — a small number of pigs find the smell of fresh hemp unusual at first and take a day or two to settle in. Just do the transition all at once rather than mixing with paper, and most pigs adapt immediately.

Just one practical tip: store the unused portion of the bale somewhere dry — a cupboard or sealed bin bag works fine. Hemp absorbs moisture from the air if left open, which reduces how well it performs in the cage. Other than that, you're set. Aubiose 20kg bale, pile it 3 to 4 inches as you already do, and you should notice a real difference by the end of the first week. Most owners say they wish they'd switched sooner.