Inside to outside summer accommodation

[Hairypiglets]

Hello,
I’m new to the forum (have been lurking for advice) and new to owning piggies as an adult.

We acquired two lovely little Guinea pigs at the end of August through a friend of a friend after searching for a few months. One was just weaned and the other ten months old, both girls. They currently live inside in a big floor cage on fleece bedding with little hide outs and hay boxes. We decided inside would be best as we live in Scotland (it’s cold a lot!) and we wanted to handle them daily as we have two children who also adore them. The piggies are incredible, they come out daily for cuddles and floor time and are completely spoilt.

When it was warm/ mild and the grass was dry they went out in the run in the garden for a few hours in the afternoon before the weather turned. Am I right in thinking that next summer they could be outside 24/7 with suitable accommodation or would they be best to go out for the day on a nice day and back to bed inside our house at night?

I had pigs as a child but my parents did the majority of the care and they were only ever outside so I’m not sure what the best thing is to do for our girls.

thank you

 

[Wiebke]

Hello,
I’m new to the forum (have been lurking for advice) and new to owning piggies as an adult.

We acquired two lovely little Guinea pigs at the end of August through a friend of a friend after searching for a few months. One was just weaned and the other ten months old, both girls. They currently live inside in a big floor cage on fleece bedding with little hide outs and hay boxes. We decided inside would be best as we live in Scotland (it’s cold a lot!) and we wanted to handle them daily as we have two children who also adore them. The piggies are incredible, they come out daily for cuddles and floor time and are completely spoilt.

When it was warm/ mild and the grass was dry they went out in the run in the garden for a few hours in the afternoon before the weather turned. Am I right in thinking that next summer they could be outside 24/7 with suitable accommodation or would they be best to go out for the day on a nice day and back to bed inside our house at night?

I had pigs as a child but my parents did the majority of the care and they were only ever outside so I’m not sure what the best thing is to do for our girls.

thank you

Hi and welcome

With climate change well underway we are going to see more and more heat spikes and prolonged heat waves when hutches and lawns in the path of a hot breeze can turn into death traps - even those in the shade I would keep my piggies as indoors piggies, especially with hutch theft or arson a problem in some areas.
You can still put your piggies outside on the lawn or use a hutch for the really hot nights but you need to be much more flexible on this issue than when you had your childhood piggies. You have a lot more interaction with indoors piggies.

https://www.theguineapigforum.co.uk...nagement-heat-strokes-and-fly-strike.160975/r
Feeding Grass And Preparing Your Piggies For Lawn Time

 

[Piggies&buns]

Mine live in a hutch in my shed year round but I find it much harder to keep them safe from heat outside in summer than I do keeping them warm in winter.
i always have a plan and a spare cage, summer or winter, to bring them inside ( I’ve never had to move them in for winter (I can maintain their temperature in their hutch/shed)) but they consistently come inside during summer often spending weeks indoors and only going out into the lawn run during early morning and late evening. This summer I wasn’t even able to put them back into their hutch for night times as it was consistently 30 degrees in their hutch/shed and wouldn’t drop enough even overnight

 

[Hairypiglets]

Thank you for replying.
We’ll stick to popping them out for a few hours if/ when the weather allows. We live in the highlands so unfortunately we don’t struggle that much with heat through the summer! We do love having them inside.