Guinea Pig Care Questions

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Complicated background I will try to keep succinct.

I sometimes look after friends' 2 cavies who live separately in two halves of an already small cage. They also have small outdoor runs that aren't very weather proof (measuring about 20" by 30").

Friends go away about 15 weeks a year, if I look after GPs in winter what with the bad weather and design of the outdoor runs the GPs will stay inside their small cages all day every day.

I don't feel very comfortable about their care, I'd rather they could get out and really run around most the time, but it's not practical for me to have them loose in the house a lot. So I am thinking to say no if asked to look after the GPs in winter, just so I can not think about them being cooped up indoors all the time.

But their owners are very good friends, I hate letting them down. Am I being silly, GPs maybe don't mind being in a small cage all the time?

You could perhaps guinea pig-proof a small room (such as the bathroom) and put them in there.

Our gps like to run around outside in summer but won't in winter, even on mild days. They hide in bed and eat, that's their winter behaviour even when given more energetic options. ours live indoors in a reasonable sized cage in winter, to my disapproval, I meant them to live outdoors all year but they look too cold and miserable so we take pity on them. But they do seem to quite like being cooped up in winter. Eating, dry warm bedding, and perhaps the odd tickle, that's what keeps them happy.

We used a large paddling pool inside for ours to play in with a bit of sawdust and their toys

We bought a kind of pen thing - it's just bars but you can make it into any shape and put more than one together to make a big space -ours is a bit like this one here.

We put an old towel or fleece under it and some toys and they are very happy having a little play in it. I wouldn't leave them in it unsupervised, but it gives them a nice change of scene when I'm around in the room.