Time in run vs time in hutch - guinea pigs

[Stampstamp]

How much time in their run do your GPs get each day? I'm hoping to get some guineas in the future and am thinking about how it would work. We're looking after a friend's GPs at the moment and when I go out I put them back in their hutch to make sure they're safe/protected from rain. They have been out for at least a few hours each day though as the weather's been reasonable so I've been putting them out in the evening if I've been out all day. If I was out all day then GPs would be in their hutch all day, that seems a bit hard on them - and the same if the weather's bad. How do you manage it?

I am wondering if the combined hutch/runs are worth having so they can get out for some grass and exercise without me being there, but the GPs poo so much I imagine the run would be awful after a couple of days. The run the GPs I'm looking after have is very light so I can easily move it round the garden to fresh grass.

Hi Stamp - are you enjoying your guinea-pig sitting? They are lovely little squawky little creatures aren't they?

At the moment our boys go out when someone is in the house. We have some evil predatory foxes living on the garage roofs so I wouldn't go out and leave them.
We've got a rabbit run (metal bars) about 84" long and knee high (it's tall enough for a rabbit to stand upright buy GP don't bother will all that activity) But it's not got a base- GPs don't dig but rabbits might. We use metal tent pegs to anchor it but it does need moved every 3-4 days. I can put boxes and tunnels in and I've got an old oldcloth table cover which I peg down to shade it.

I'm at work 3 days so they go out in the evening on those days (6-8pm) then a cuddle then bed. They've got a fan in their shed to stop them cooking

I don't let mine free range indoors (too many places to hide or wires too chew) but their Pighouse is a playhouse/shed so they've got space and boxes. In winter they are in at night but go out with the radiator and a huge haybox stuffed with hay (They are spoiled, you might have guessed) .
I bought a paddling pool for indoor playtime.

The runs/hutches attatched- they are more difficult to move.
You need to make sure it's foxproof.
Weeds like buttercups and daisies. If you have a seperate run, you can avoid them .
And our run folds flat for storage, or emergency accomodation in the garage (as we had to do last year. Had a leaky window so the GPs had to 'camp' in the garage for a week)

My GP2 (who died) used to get soft pooh after too much grass. My GP3 is a piglet so he's building up his grass time.
They're out about 6 hours at the moment but they just lard about in their houses.

They are lovely little creatures . We had our Playhouse (wooden Swiss Chalet style) that the DC outgrew so DH adapted it for GP living. The run was about £50 and the indoor cage £40.

Go for the most room you can give them. Maybe C&C cages if you keep them inside?

Last winter I put the rabbit run in the garage (lots of cardboard on the floor) and they had a guinea village to run about in.

Ours are indoor pigs and spend most of their time lazing around in their cage. They go out when I'm home into their run on the lawn, which is like 70's in that it folds up. If it's bad weather and I'm feeling up to the cleaning, I let them free range in the conservatory but I also have a play pen which I put up in the kitchen for them sometimes. They don't tend to be very active generally but do have the occasional burst of activity.

Hope you're enjoying pig sitting.

I'm loving the pig-sitting, they're gorgeous and I'll be sad to see them go home tomorrow. I think if we got some of our own we would clear some space in the garage so that we could put a run in there, then if the weather's bad they can still have a bit of space to play. We'd almost certainly have an indoor cage for winter too as I would hate to have them outside overnight in freezing weather, plus they would no doubt get a lot more attention from us if they were inside in winter.

Basically so far my planned guinea pig purchases involve a hutch for outside, a run for outside, potentially a separate run for in garage so I wouldn't have to keep moving it (maybe C&C), a mesh door for garage so they could have the door open without risking cat attack, and an indoor cage plus probably a paddling pool for inside play if too cold outside. I'll be scouring Freecycle, this could end up very expensive, although if we got them next spring I wouldn't have to worry about the indoor stuff for a while.