As the number of people keeping pet guinea pigs keeps on increasing, the number of questions that we see people from the guinea pig keeping community keeps on rising.
Some of these questions that we see have already been answered in some of our other articles but over the last week or so, there have been a number of people asking about if their guinea pig will attract fruit flies or not.
We have seen some discussions on social media where people argue for both sides of the argument with both sides being both correct and incorrect at the same time.
Due to this, we wanted to publish this article going over our thoughts of guinea pigs and fruit flies to try and help our readers better understand why some guinea pigs seem to attract fruit flies as well as how you can stop it.
Thankfully, for the vast majority of our readers, it really shouldn’t be too difficult to stop the fruit flies from forming around your guinea pig and in most cases, it should only take a couple of minutes of your time each day.
Why Are There Fruit Flies In My Guinea Pig Cage?
The name fruit flies often catches people out and make them think that the fly will only be attracted to fruit but this is not correct at all.
Fruit flies will eat any plant based food that is high in sugar with this often including vegetables and other starchy sugar based foods too.
Not only are foods like peas, alfalfa, corn, soybeans, and wheat commonly found in guinea pig food that can attract fruit flies but the digestive system of a guinea pig will often leave surprisingly large amounts of sugar in their poop.
The various acids in your guinea pig’s stomach often make the plant based sugars in their food more readily available for fruit flies to digest when pooped out too.
This means that fruit flies will be attracted to your guinea pig cage for their food but also their poop.
Is It Normal To Have Fruit Flies In My Guinea Pig Cage?
It is not usually considered normal for people to have fruit flies in a well kept guinea pig cage but in certain situations, there can definitely be a much higher chance of you having fruit flies in the cage than other people.
These include areas with higher humidity, areas with hotter temperatures, and areas that are near the natural breeding grounds for fruit flies.
In this situation, the chances of you having fruit flies near your guinea pig cage will naturally increase.
There are also a number of things that you are able to do that can increase the chances of fruit flies congregating around your guinea pig cage too.
These include not cleaning your guinea pigs poop out of the cage each day and not changing your guinea pig’s food on a regular basis.
How Do I Get Rid Of Fruit Flies In My Guinea Pig Cage?
The easiest way to prevent fruit flies from congregating in your guinea pigs cage is to spot clean your guinea pigs poop from the cage every day.
You can also try to reduce the amount of food that you give to your guinea pig each day but increase the frequency that you feed your guinea pig.
The logic behind this is to make sure that you only give your guinea pig enough food to eat for that specific day.
Overfeeding is common in guinea pigs anyway but this strategy also offers the additional benefit of the guinea pig food in the cage having a lower chance of being able to get wet and have the sugars break down.
Your guinea pig may accidentally drip its drinking water onto its food and in some cases, its saliva can also break down the sugars in its food.
This can be enough to start to attract fruit flies to your guinea pigs cage so feeding less food more frequently to make sure your guinea pigs calorie needs are met usually prevents this.
Avoid Fly Spray
We have seen a number of people recommend that you use fly spray around your guinea pigs cage as a quick and easy way to deal with fruit flies.
Although this can easily get rid of the fruit flies, it can also cause a number of issues with your pet guinea pig.
Your guinea pig has a very sensitive sense of smell and irritants in the air can cause a number of problems with your pet guinea pig.
In our opinion, it is much easier to just remove the potential food sources that the fruit flies are looking for to make them naturally leave the area rather than use a fly spray that may cause issues with your guinea pig.
Can Fruit Flies Come From Guinea Pig Poop?
In some cases, it may look as though the fruit flies are emerging from your guinea pig poop but in most cases, they will usually just be feeding on your guinea pig poop and crawl around it giving the impression that they are emerging out of the poop when feeding.
That said, fruit flies maggots can live on guinea pig poop and in some cases, fruit flies may lay their eggs on your guinea pigs poop and their maggots will quickly hatch.
It is usually very easy to identify fruit fly maggots due to their white appearance contrasting with your guinea pig’s poop easily.
Although fruit flies can lay their eggs on your guinea pig’s food, it is unlikely that they will live through the digestive process and your guinea pig’s stomach acids will destroy any fruit fly eggs in most cases.
If you are having problems with fruit fly maggots in your guinea pig poop then this is an indication that your guinea pig’s cage is not being cleaned frequently enough.
