Wow, you should see how much room our guinea pigs have now! We bought the cube cages that Becci recommended today and have made a massive indoor run for them.
It's taken over practically the whole lounge floor   and the bits that it doesn't are full of hamster cages!
Penny and Snuggles don't quite know what to make of it yet and are currently sat in their cages  
I'm  sure they will be out in a bit. I'll get some pics and post them here later tonight.

Here's the pictures of our new play pen for the guinea pigs. It's a bit temporary, especially the papers on the floor but we are going to get some correx flooring tomorrow.





It is 7 feet wide and about 9 feet long, so the pictures don't really do it justice. The guinea pigs are still a bit freaked out by it at the moment and hiding all over the place, but they are shy girls and will come around and appreciate it soon, I'm sure.

Very nice! Your girls are doing alright. It is nice to see them with room to move. Bigger is always better.  

I'm not sure that the guinea pigs think their new cage and playpen setup is as great as we thought it was  .  Neither guines pig appears to have moved out of their cage all night  - they didn't even come out to get their veggies.

I've been keeping an eye on them today.  Snuggles hasn't moved from under the wicker shelter inside the cage and poor Penny has just backed herself into the opposite end of the cage.  They've only moved to come and get some fresh veggies and that was only when I put them in the cage too.

It's been quite worrying and they seem quite spooked by the whole playpen idea.  My heart was breaking for them and so I reinstated their old cage setup this afternoon...back to square one!  Not sure whether it was just too much too soon.   Maybe we could try again in a few weeks/months once they are much tamer.

I think that we may just have to use the cage for playtimes with us...at least we won't have to grab all the cushions in the house to block off any escape routes anymore.

Yeah, they are back to their old two cage setup, they got scared and just froze and would not come out, its great to see them happy again bounding from cage to cage. Well, on the brightside like you said diane, we will have a great playpen without all the cushions and carpets in the room being used as barriers!

guinea pigs just take a couple of days to adjust to things....honeslty if you get them a couple of pigloos and set the thing up with the correx, eventually once they'd settled in, they'd be much healthier happier piggies

They are rather conservative creatures aren't they. You mustn't move a food dish or change brands. The playpen will make your play time easier with them and they will adjust in time, we hope. Bearded dragons just boldly go. Jonathan has been everywhere at least once. Getting her out from under the frig was not easy. Pigbert has never tried to go anywhere. We have our adventurers and our "stay at homes". Clearly guinea pigs are not adventurers.

The only time trouble did not explore was when he was to old to, he used to be a little monkey, climbing. In the car when we were bring him home for the first time he went mad on his wheel - but never went on it again after. Wierd.

Becci, do you know where you can buy big sheets of coroplast?

the builders centre or jewsons should do it - they used it for lining under tiles and stuff

that looks great - if you find coroplast can you please tell me where, we looked everywhere for it yesterday with no luck

my jewsons dosent sell it and focus tried to sell me perspex - i might just have to buy the pre-cut sheets online

I tried Jewson's yesterday but they said that they didn't stock it.

Try contacting Cordek Ltd, who are suppliers of cordex for the construction industry, or alternatively, look up in the yellow pages etc under Signmakers who use this product.

Question: what is coroplast(apparently not the little green things in plants) and what is perspex(something seen by way of glasses perhaps).

coroplast is corrugated plastic - its got loads of names but its basically single layered corrugated plastic

perspex is clear plastic sheets

I think Becci and Molldoll are the experts on correx, but it is some kind of laminated plastic sheeting which is soft and foldable and lined so it folds up neatly in corners and apparently provided a very good material for an indoor runs surface.
Perspex I do know, that is the rigid plastic sheeting that is used to roof some outdoor small garden buildings, so no good for animals as far as I am award. They probably just call these something else your side of the pond  

We have something called Plexi-glass. It is actually clear(or colored)plastic sheets. It comes in different thicknesses. I don't use it for reptiles because the plastic does not stay clear like glass. I am not familiar with anything that is equal to Correx. It does sound useful. Would you put it under small animal runs? They are working on a soft rubber flooring for large animals. It would be great for horses. The zoo is using it for the Indian Rhinoes. I have yet to hear how it is working out. It is better than concrete because it has some give and is easier on the animals legs and feet. There could be a big market for this with the horse and cattle breeders. Flexible plastic sheets sound very useful. We do get different products here compared to what you have. It is not just the names that are different. Of course our needs are different what with it being winter forever here.

its like the stuff they make for sale signs from
you can get it from most local sign makers

I must check out the building supply store near here. It is huge. There is a steady amount of renovating and building in the area. They have all the newest products.