We need advice about guinea pigs. PLEASE

[flossie64]

We are in the process of buying a pair of guinea pigs, I need to know if they can live outside all year and where to buy their home from.
we don't have a problem with their once we get them as my DH had 24 when he was younger, but he lived in South Africa at the time so the weather conditions were not an issue.
I thought I would buy a hutch with a built in under run. Does this sound good bad or otherwise?

Well ours are outside in a hutch and they are fine, though they are in quite a sheltered part of garden.

What youre getting sounds fine.

do you have a cover for winter time?
We plan to put the hutch in the corner where it will be sheltered on 3 sides. Aslo would I need a separate run for them on the grass area?
Thanks so for the tons of Q's .
The only animal I have ever looked after was a horse. Not really helpful in this case

Problem with the built in under run is that they eat grass really quickly and they are very heavy to move. we ended up getting a separate run.
We are on our second lot of guinea pigs as dds last one expired when it was 6. The last lot did really well in a covered hutch sheltered against the house. We put in a pigloo into the sleeping area and stuffed between the pigloo and the hutch with loads of hay.

do be aware that tis not great for guinea pigs to go from being out in the very cold into warm indoors - they get thermal shock then so its worth having a back up plan like an unheated porch for extremely cold nights.

The hutch we saw had a run under but it was sealed IYKWIM. I am not putting it straight on grass,I will be puting it on gravel.
On the porch thing ,we don't have one.
The coolest place indoors is the dining room as I only heat it when its high days and holidays i.e. Christmas.