Outdoor guinea pig enclosure

[abearcalledpaddington]

I am moving into a new house next week and i have 3 guinea pigs,they are in a cage indoors at the moment but we do take them outside every day.

The new place has lots of space outside and i will be putting them in a hutch outside (but possibly putting them inside at night as im a bit scared of foxes etc)

I know you can buy runs but i would like to make them some kind of permanent enclosure outside.They have something like that at a farm we visit regularly and the kids call it guinea pig land lol.

Its like a run but big and without a lid,and the hutch is actually inside, and theres lots of tunnels and ramps and stuff for the gp to play with.

Anyone have anything like this or seen anything like this?

[sanfairyanne]

i think a lid/top might be better if you can, although mine actually free range so i cant talk really! (no foxes)

i have seen walk in fruit cages and chicken cage type things that might be similar? a full size door in a 3mx3m type structure? sounds fun they all had roofs though

[70isaLimitNotaTarget]

YY to a roof for them. Cats, foxes, birds of prey, magpies. All foe of the piggies -- though it would have to be flipping strong to carry of GP4

If you could put their hutch inside the run and give them hidey places they'd love it.
But you might want a second moveable run because they can denude a patch of grass in a few days . So in their run they can pootle about and have some extra grazing in the moveable one.

You need to plan where you site it - out of full sun. Away from draughts in case your jutch gets blown over.
Good drainage.
Protect the legs of the hutch against damp. And make sure you can shut them in if you don't want them going out.

I have a big wooden 'box' in the run (it was a chest of drawers that I took the innards out of and DH treated it with petsafe paint)

Rubber trugs upside down with a door cut out

And they love their 'Hop Inn' tunnels.

Chicken coops look good, different areas to sleep and hide but the ramps are steep so you'd need to customise it for lardy pigs.
Some are 'walk in' size for humans.

Mine have a playhouse that DH customised for pigs.