Outdoor living for Guinea Pigs

[SqueakyPig]

Hello, I’m exploring options for housing my guineas pig outdoors over the warmer months. They’re currently indoor pigs that I will slowly acclimatise by placing them in a run building up to living out.

My dilemma is whether to house my pigs in a two story hutch - will my guinea pigs be able to manage the stairs?

Or a single floor hutch - however the only single floor hutch I can find that’s big enough doesn’t have a hutch cover and I can’t find one for it? How else could I keep my hutch warm/dry during the cooler months or even just because of the rain, but before I bring them indoors for the year until it warms again next summer?

Following as we are doing the same!

Our guinea pigs go outside in the warmer months in a double storey hutch and I was worried about them negotiating the slope at first as it seems quite steep for little piggies but they manage just fine - it did take them a few days to pluck up the courage though!

They have a pen attached to the hutch so can go outside at any time during the day and I close them up at night, making sure their bedroom has lots of hay so they don't get cold. The hutch also has a double rain cover to fit.

They come into the lean-to during the colder months and my husband has made them a tunnel to their garden pen so they can still go outside on warmer days. Seems to work quite well.

We have a slope on the indoor cage for ours and they manage it quite well. One GP takes a run up and the other just leisurely wanders up it.

We had a double hutch but being outside attracted vermin

You could just do outside in the daytime if you are not in a fox-ridden area.

Mine goes out in the outdoor equivalent of a C&C any day when the weather is OK. He has an old eglu to shelter in.

There are loads of battered old eglus on ebay that would do fine as day runs.