Weather / Hutch issues - please help

[Vixxiv]

Hi, I'm new here - please be gentle!

So I bought a two tier hutch from pets at home, it looks beautiful, Nibble & Munch seem to enjoy the space and zoom around but...

The structure is already taking in water from the sides, being as its only a month old and designed as an outdoor home is it wrong to assume that the exterior walls should already be weather proof?

I cover the front of the hutch to prevent rain coming in but everything inside is soaked and the girls are having to live in a playpen in my tiny living room! I'm so frustrated and annoyed, the shower proof covers and thermal covers are all out of stock, has anyone made their own hutch cover? Or repainted their hutches - has this worked? I don't have a shed to put the hutch in.

Thank you.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I have a pets at home bluebell hutch. Fortunately mine is permanently in a shed but I have no doubt that it would not survive well outside. The wood is rather thin. It is a nice hutch though.
I would expect it to manage more than one month but I don’t have a lot of confidence in them being too great for too long due to being thin wood. The covers for them are shower proof and they only clip with Velcro on the sides rather than fully zip closed so the combination of slight gaps on the sides and the fact it’s only shower proof (not more resistant than that), I’m not sure it would truly do much to really stop water from getting in. I do have a cover for mine but it’s for it’s insulating value (I obviously don’t need water protection), although I don’t think the covers themselves aren’t really good enough on their own for outdoor piggies and I even in the shed I still use two layers of blankets as well.
I have a much more expensive hutch for my rabbit which has been outside for 7 years with no problems (I do have a waterproof hutch cover with it but that only gets used in winter and is fully zipped on all sides).
Painting it with a wood preservative will hopefully help but it’ll have to be done every year/couple of years. I would look to throw plastic sheeting/tarpaulin over the whole hutch, not just the front. I always paint new outdoor hutches even if they are already treated wood.

 

[Vixxiv]

Thank you for your response they really do seem to be poor quality and from what you've said about the covers I'd be wasting money buying one, we've got the Foxglove version.
I'll look into proper tarpaulins and see what else I can do, I did buy a pet safe garden wood paint yesterday but until it dries out I can't paint it... The great British summer eh? Although I'm glad I found out now rather than in proper winter weather.

 

[Piggies&buns]

I’ve just pulled my cover down to show you, but there are three bits of Velcro, top, middle and bottom. The plastic has torn where the Velcro joins. Of course mine doesn’t come up against wind etc and the cover has still torn. You could of course find a way to clip the side to the front all the way down, but I'm not sure how easy or effective it would be

 

[Vixxiv]

Thank you, that's really kind of you. Like you say yours is used indoors and it's still come apart in places - I don't have much faith in the quality, reminds me of buggy rain covers when my son was small! Always rubbish and splitting on the sides!
I'm seriously considering how I can rearrange my home to bring the hutch indoors... My girlies aren't that chirpy this morning, they want their home back