Searching for a Guinea pig-proof House

[MartiDavi]

(Not sure if this is the right forum spot for this…)

Hey everyone!

We’re starting to look at buying our first house (very exciting, very terrifying ), and naturally one of my main criteria is: is it guinea-pig-proof?

We’re potentially looking at somewhere a bit more rural/countryside-ish, with plenty of green around, and I’ve realised I have two very specific piggy-parent worries that I’d love some experienced opinions on.

First: fireplaces/wood burners.
A lot of the houses we’re seeing seem to have a fireplace, log burner or something similar in the living room. Our piggies have always lived in the living room with us and we’d really like to keep it that way.

Can you safely have guinea pigs in the same room as a working fireplace or wood burner? I’m thinking both about the room getting too warm for them and also smoke/fumes/air quality. Obviously we could monitor the temperature, but I’ve never lived somewhere with a proper fire before so I have no idea how dramatically they heat the room!

And then my slightly more paranoid question… wildlife.

If we move somewhere rural, how realistic is the risk of foxes, rats, cats or other wildlife actually getting into the house and reaching indoor guinea pigs? I’ve read a few absolute horror stories online about predators getting into homes/outbuildings and, quite frankly, they have left me SHOOK.

Our pigs would still be indoor pigs, in proper cages in the living room, but is there anything extra you’d look for when buying a countryside house? Secure doors/windows? Air vents? Older houses with gaps? Particular types of cage security?

Basically, if you were buying a house with the piggies firmly included in the decision-making committee, what would be on your checklist?

Any other things we haven’t thought about are very welcome too — temperature, damp, drafts, wildlife, access to vets, emergency power during winter… whatever you wish you’d considered before moving!

 

[Truffolo]

City foxes are definitely a risk and could easily come into a living room through an open window when no one is around. I'm not sure about rural foxes. I think if people are coming and going you should be able to open windows. Not sure about leaving doors open though. Foxes are quick and are notorious for taking chickens. Guinea pigs wouldn't be much different. I like foxes, but they are carnivores, so taking care is worthwhile. Badgers would also attack guinea pigs but might be less inclined to get into the house. They are very strong though and could get through barriers that are fix proof. I'm not sure about wood burners and wood fires. There might be a monitor of some sort that would let you know about air quality problems. I hope that you can find a lovely place for yourselves and your piggies in a nice area.

 

[MartiDavi]

City foxes are definitely a risk and could easily come into a living room through an open window when no one is around. I'm not sure about rural foxes. I think if people are coming and going you should be able to open windows. Not sure about leaving doors open though. Foxes are quick and are notorious for taking chickens. Guinea pigs wouldn't be much different. I like foxes, but they are carnivores, so taking care is worthwhile. Badgers would also attack guinea pigs but might be less inclined to get into the house. They are very strong though and could get through barriers that are fix proof. I'm not sure about wood burners and wood fires. There might be a monitor of some sort that would let you know about air quality problems. I hope that you can find a lovely place for yourselves and your piggies in a nice area.

Thank you, this is really helpful! I hadn’t actually thought about an open living-room window itself being a potential way in But you’re right, foxes are incredibly quick, and a guinea pig would unfortunately be very easy prey. Will google ways to secure windows/doors. And good shout on the air quality monitor!

 

[weepweeps]

Good luck with your house search.

I’ve been looking at houses too recently. Every house I’m looking at has to have a “piggy room” in it.

We have a log burner in our living room at the moment and our next house will definitely have one too. They are lovely.

You need to have a carbon monoxide alarm in the room with the log burner for your safety anyway. So I’m thinking it would be fine for your piggies to be in the same room. Our piggies are in the room opposite the living room.

Log burners do heat up the room quickly though. I’m not sure if that would be a problem for your piggies

If you are comfortable they will be comfortable too but you can always open the door if it gets too hot in there.

I live by some woods and there are foxes around a lot of the time. Day and night. I’ve never had a fox try and get in the house but I do have a dog so hopefully they can smell him and that keeps them away.

 

[piggieminder]

I live in a city and we have, foxes, cats, rats, mice etc to think of, these animals are not just a rural problem! I only open small top windows, don't have doors open except to air the house while we are stood by them (usually early morning). We check seals round water pipes outside every few months, rodents are notorious for getting in the smallest gap. When my boys are outside in the runs one of us is always outside with them. When I lived in the country the badgers were our biggest problem, they kept turning the lawn into a ploughed field, poor piggies had no grass! Rodents are known to chew through wood if piggies are kept outside in a shed but if yours are indoors you won't have that problem.
The log burner may make the room to hot but that is something you would have to test once you have moved. We have a gas fire in our living room which gives out a lot of heat so we don't use it.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I live in a country village.
My piggies live outside in my shed.
I have a log burner in my living room so while my piggies aren’t affected by it, i can speak to their effectiveness!
My living room is large (27x18 feet) and our log burner heats the room pretty quickly. We keep the door shut to warm the room, then open the door to let the heat filter through the rest of the house.

Whether it heats it up too much too quickly (remembering it’s the sudden fluctuations that aren’t good for piggies) you would have to see as it is dependent upon many factors - room size, outside temp, inside temp etc

 

[AidaB]

We live in a town with plenty of woodlands near by. We often get a badger visiting the garden, and plenty of red kites flying about. Cats quite often pass through too.

When our guinea pigs go outdoors (not this summer unfortunately) one of us is always near by we do not have good sight lines from our back door.
The back door & downstairs windows are only left open if one of us is downstairs.

As well as everyone elses suggestions, it might be a good idea to think about the hotter summers we are getting & if you have a cool room for the piggies to hang out in.

We get full morning sun on the rear of our home & full late afternoon & evening sun on the front. Which means we currently have a toasty house despite our cooling measures. Our Guinea pigs relocate to the floor and take over our living space in this weather.

We live in an older property- and yes we have draughts- so the boys usual home is elevated on storage units, to help avoid some of this.

Good luck with your search.

 

[BoPeep]

I live semi-rural, backing onto woodland but on a housing estate type set up. There are foxes, deer etc in the woods. They’re too shy to come near the house and the piggies are upstairs. My biggest risk is my own dog and neighbourhood cats, so we have a two door system where the dog is always elsewhere with a treat etc, she’s been around caged pets since she was a puppy but I don’t trust her enough to take the risk. Outside when the guinea pigs are in the run I have the run secured down with tent pegs and I don’t leave them unattended - that said I know lots of people who have chickens etc who are fine in secure runs.

 

[Merab]

I live in a rural village.
I don’t put the piggies outside because we have too many birds of prey around and I don’t want the piggies scared.
I use a pair of scissors and a pasta bowl for fresh grass and dandelion leaves.

Like @weepweeps it’s ideal to have a piggy room but what we have ended up with is me sharing their room for study space.

Good luck with house hunting.
I highly recommend rural living if you don’t mind contending with tractors and other farm vehicles on the roads, single track roads, horse boxes and muck spreading

 

[MartiDavi]

Thank you everyone, this is all really useful! I’m definitely adding a few more things to the house-hunting checklist after reading these replies.

And yes, summer is probably going to be just as much of a consideration as winter, especially with the hotter summers we seem to be getting now. We’re already thinking that wherever we buy, we may need to budget for proper air conditioning for the piggy area/room rather than relying on fans and frozen bottles every time there’s a heatwave. So I think looking at which way the room faces, how much sun it gets and whether there’s a naturally cooler room available is going to be important too.

The comments about windows and doors are really helpful as well. I honestly can’t imagine a situation where we’d leave a downstairs window or door wide open and then disappear for hours anyway, but it’s definitely something I’ll be more conscious of now. I really like the idea of some sort of extra barrier/safety net or double-door system too, especially if we end up somewhere with doors straight onto the garden. And checking little gaps around pipes etc is something I probably never would have thought about!

The log burner comments are reassuring too. It sounds like the burner itself wouldn’t necessarily rule a house out, but we’d need to pay much more attention to the actual room size, cage position and how quickly the temperature changes. Carbon monoxide alarms and temperature/air-quality monitors are definitely going on the list.

We would actually love to live somewhere properly countryside-ish. We’re currently looking around Derbyshire and similar areas, so tractors, horses and questionable countryside smells aren’t putting me off yet. In fact this whole house-buying adventure is the reason I’m finally learning to drive!

The piggies will definitely remain indoor piggies, and I think I’m increasingly accepting that every viewing is now going to involve me walking into a room and immediately thinking, “Right… but where would the cage go?”

Thank you again everyone, it’s really helpful hearing from people actually living in rural/semi-rural places rather than just reading scary stories online!


Also, here is the pic of the terrible trio:

 

[AidaB]

Happy house hunting.


That’s a super photo of your terrific trio, it looks like they have lined up in height order for you.