Vacuuming Poop

When I started with the guinea pigs I used a little dustpan and brush combo to clean up the poop on a daily basis. With the addition of 3 pound, nervous Pratchett, the dustpan/brush was no longer feasible, as Pratchett SMASHES poops into smaller, even dusty pieces as he runs away to the other side of the mansion whenever he sees or hears me.

As an experiment, I decided to try using a hand vac to pick up the poo. It was quite a success. For the first week the pigs were anxious about the sound, but now they are quite willing to be right next to the it when I'm using it and it's making its super-loud noise. The girls popcorn and zoom around, because they adore a clean cage, and the hand vac made it happen faster!

It would take about four times emptying the hand vac in order to suck up more poo. This was annoying, but not too bad of an issue. Of course, then I tried the hand vac with the chinchillas. It just doesn't have the power to grab that rice-shaped poo confetti. I did some research and ended up with this:

A ShopVac wet/dry vacuum that only holds 1 1/2 gallons or 5.6 liters. It was simple to put together, and because it directly plugs into a power source has a much stronger motor. It was great the first time I used it, and then it stopped working...

The hose had been plugged with eight inches of dense, small bits of hay. This ShopVac vacuum is too small to handle hay. It DOES work very well for the chinchillas, though. I wish it had a longer cord; I'll have to get an extension.

In conclusion, the dust buster is better. You have to empty it more often, but it CAN suck in hay, and any stuck hay is easily shaken out. A powerful, easy-empty hand vac is what you want.