Don't be discouraged

[CuteFluffyThing]

I know that a lot of people here say outdoor enviroments aren't good for a guineapig but in alot fo cases it is . We have an outdoor enviroment of 2square meters in our garden and there are alot of cats in our neighborhood .We have put pins on the walls the cats crawl over if they attack our guineapigs and since then no cat has entered our garden . Our guineapigs have two wooden boxes in their part of the garden and a dugged in , large stone cave with golfplates on it to keep them dry . We keep the cave dry with hay and we isolated it with plastic against moisture and cold . Allso its never to cold in the winters because we created a little heat tube that gives some heat . It takes 2 minutes to warm up the cave and then we put our guineapigs in it . It doesn't burn em because its too cold for that . I can tell you our guineapigs are very happy with it . I will post pictures later on

[cavylover]

Its the point of people letting their pigs outside without supervision and no places to hide.Thats awesome what you made for your gineas id love to see some pics .

[mncavylover]

Hmmm... I think I would rather have my piggies inside where I know they are safe in hot summers and FREEZING Minnesota winters... I couldn't bear the thought of them sitting out there in the rain, either... How about posting a couple pictures? That would help me a lot. What do you do for them in summer when it gets hot? =)

[cavylover]

Hes probably in like australia or something where the guinea pigs are used to the heat and no cold.

[CuteFluffyThing]

Hmmm... I think I would rather have my piggies inside where I know they are safe in hot summers and FREEZING Minnesota winters... I couldn't bear the thought of them sitting out there in the rain, either... How about posting a couple pictures? That would help me a lot. What do you do for them in summer when it gets hot? =)

didn't i tell that? my mistake , of course in winters we take our GP's inside but when the weathers fine they like being outside
in the summers if its very hot ( wich is rare in Belguim) we put multiple water "pools" out , not the high poools but low ones so that they can go into the water . We allso make the grass wet each two hours wich is very refreshing for the Gp's
edit : actually , im from Belguim where we have very very regular summers with rain and stuff , but thats why we made the cave and the heating tube

[CuteFluffyThing]

i am sorry for the double - post but i finished making pictures of our "GP valley" . i will probably post a new picture each day
http://pic14.picturetrail.com/VOL497...8/59960128.jpg
this is the url for the picture , i put it on my website because its too big to be put here
GP valley explanation ( see picture first )


wires : to keep the Gp from running away
Spikes (not visible on the picture) : we put spikes on the wires around our garden to keep the cats from coming in , allso note the fence with the spikes on wich prevents cats from jumping over it ( partially visible in upper left corner)
wooden box : gives shadow and when its very hot we put pools near them
exercise court (above the wooden box ) : our Gp's love running on and off the ramps and jumping on and off the heights . We allso put our food and water ( to drink) there
cave : (to the right) The cave is open now , notice the gold plate thats beed attached to the wall , we can close the cave with that plate, we allso have a "door" on the cave wich we can lock from the outside when where away or something
tube : that's the heating tube , composed out of plastic

if you want to see more pictures about one of the articles or an explenation on how to build them just ask me

remeber : your Gp's have to be safe outside

[mncavylover]

Wow, that's pretty neat. What do they do if it rains, though? Do they like the water? That would be funny! =) Thanks for the answers, I thought you'd bring them in when it gets too cold but I had to be sure. Do they keep the lawn short? Haha... Mine do in their playpen outside. I might make an outdoor hutch for them so that they can stay in it safely, with a lid and having it secured to the ground of course. That way, on long spring, fall, and summer days they can stay outside while I am home. Thanks for the picture--it looks really neat! =) The reason I was a bit worried is that it gets up to, oh... 100f (37c) in the summer sometimes and down to about -45c to -50c in the winter (about -58f).
That's why I just can't have a cage outside for them to stay in. Thanks again for the picture! =)

[ChadWPB]

I heartily disagree. Outdoor pets get only a fraction of the attention they need. When a guinea pig falls ill, one has very limited time to get help. Most often they stop eating entirely.

Where's the top? Any bird of prey can swoop in and take a pig in an instant!

Winter is no good for a pig! Even here in South Florida it can get cold once in a while. Even though you have a heating tube, this means the pigs have to stay in their little hidey while it's cold outside. Nice.

Yes, my guinea pigs are indoor pigs, even in Florida.

Good luck. You pigs will need it if you want them to last.

[cavylover]

I was bitching about hwo you had your pigs outside all the time but really since you explained it all out for me i agree its awesome.Here in Canada its still way to cold to do that>9yes to global warming just a bit ) Anyways Chad who cares about birds of prey the mostly only predators in towns are not eaglesa or things like that its segals and pigeons.And guinea pigs of course have really good eye site so they could see another animal from at least 20 metres away.And Belgium temperatures are totally different from Florida its not as hot.well im still nto all for it but 90% with it.How long have you had your pigs out for.Seems like you really know what your doing.

[CuteFluffyThing]

I was bitching about hwo you had your pigs outside all the time but really since you explained it all out for me i agree its awesome.Here in Canada its still way to cold to do that>9yes to global warming just a bit ) Anyways Chad who cares about birds of prey the mostly only predators in towns are not eaglesa or things like that its segals and pigeons.And guinea pigs of course have really good eye site so they could see another animal from at least 20 metres away.And Belgium temperatures are totally different from Florida its not as hot.well im still nto all for it but 90% with it.How long have you had your pigs out for.Seems like you really know what your doing.

Well , i'm doing my best . we have a cavy family wich has now 4 children (we give them away to friends if they can prove they can take care of one or we take them to the pet shop if theyre too old to keep) and i would like to say that its not smart to put Gp's that are younger then two weeks outside , they are too young and they won't run if a cat comes after them . Something a large Gp will do immediately . We always take the mother with the children inside each time we have a new nest (the father is very ...cough .... heated up if his female cavy is ready again to be made pregnant so thats allso one of the reasons)
if you would like more info on anything in our garden or more pictures of certain spots (you cant see the wooden bridge behind the tree in my picture) just ask here
and for the birds n cats : i already told we took care of that and there are no Gp-eating birds in Belguim . The biggest bird here is a duck and i can hardly recall ducks eat Gp's . We put spikes on each wall to keep away the cats and we watch our Gp's every day to see if they're okay andf we allso feed them every day ( wich seems very normal to me , i wonder why you doubted that) . We aren't letting them eat grass alone

[cavylover]

Well there ya go Chad .I'd love to see every inch of your cavy fern.looks awesome by the pic i just saw of it .

[dream lopz]

The biggest bird here is a duck and i can hardly recall ducks eat Gp's .

at the duck thing! (Sorry I laughed when I imagined it) If I could provide that for my animals I would but my animals are so dumb they would probably sit in the rain and get ill even if there was shelter. I have no problems with out door animals mine live in our garage (carless) They are very happy and the rabbits have a 24 hour run and one of my rabbits the 'fat' rabbit is now thin and binkying a lot (the equilavent of popcorning) also they have a big outdoor run and they come inside. The rabbits also get the full run of the garden that is very good for their health, we'll see about the g.ps but I know when they settle in they'll explore my entire garden too (but my garden isn't neally as big as what yours seems to be) The gp's have a massive cage in the garage and recently the days have been hot (I say hot but to America that is probably cold!) they have spent the whole day in the gp run. The biggest birds we get are sparrows!?! with the ocational seagul at lunch times! They come in the house every day and I spend hours with my animals every day.

I'm working on the 24 hour run for the gp's we'll see about that but then again I only got them on Sunday sooo...

If my animals lived in the house they wouldn't get 1/2 as good life as they do now. They are some of the hapyest animals that lived. If the weather gets really bad they come inside or if for any reason they need to I don't hesitate to bring them in. So I respect your set up and I would do it if I could!

The only thing is how can you catch them in that bigger space? Also sorry about the spelling

[CuteFluffyThing]

it is true that Gp's are happyer outside , and if they wont loook for shelter , it means that they are already dependent to you ( they want you to put them inside) . If you let the Gp's alone for a couple of days they will surely do it out of their own (always look after them each day to see if they are eating well) .My GP family is well-exercised ,healthy and happy
I will post new pictures when im back home ( where my digi cam is)
If you decide to go for an outdoor enviroment i would like to note these details
-make sure your Gp's have shelter like the cave in my picture ( it was open then because it was a sunny day)
-Watch your GP's every day to see if they are eating enough
-Put a full-proof cat defence system . Out of own experience i know the folllowing : cats come in trough walls , try putting sharp objects under them or on them . Call me a cattorturer , but its the cat or my cute GP's
we have allso found a way to see when our GP's want to eat . We always go pull fresh grass and cornleaves from the farmers fields and we put them in plastic bags and in our freezer in the garage and the GP's know we always feed them out of plastic bags so they will start to squeel ( i dont know how to say it , not an english expert . The sound that GP's make) if they hear a plastic bag if they're hungry .
Yours Truly
Vincent De Nil

[cavylover]

Here they have a little invisible fence for dogs that is electrical.I';d think you could put the radius up higher then it normal is suposed to go Zap bad kitty leave my pigs alone .

[CuteFluffyThing]

sorry , we dont use electrical wires to keep away dogs since the Gp might think its a wire with munch in it and i don't like to see my Gp's roasted ,(humor) we do however sprankel some ratpoison on the spiçkes each day tro make sure NO cat comes BACK *mehehehehehehehe* and we put plates with "touch our piggies , your cat dies" on the front door with a nice picture of a cat with a magnum .773 in front of it on (/humor)

If you put piggies out for the first time , they may be scared and they need to adjust a little . But after a while we saw our family do so much popcorning around our garden that we thought they where doing some kind of ritual

[LiciaMommycott]

I know that a lot of people here say outdoor enviroments aren't good for a guineapig but in alot fo cases it is .

I think it's awesome that you have the climate where they can live like that. It's far closer to their natural environment than our indoor cages. In my case, living in Southern California, it would get dangerously hot for them, not to mention the predators like coyotes (most likely killer of them) and then there are lots of outdoor cats, hawks, etc. Don't know why people here have outdoor cats though. I have two friends and my next door neighbor that lost their cats to coyotes.

[tashagurl]

Yea, Coyotes can be a real problem in some areas. My dogs keep the cats out of my yard but I still protect them the few months out of the year they can be outside. The good news is that my mom finaly said that I can make two cc cages before winter!! It was horrible last year with five store bought cages in my room. And when I was at my dads house SHE had to clean them so she knows what Im talking about. Im soo happy!!!

[bunnyluv17]

sorry , we dont use electrical wires to keep away dogs since the Gp might think its a wire with munch in it and i don't like to see my Gp's roasted ,(humor) we do however sprankel some ratpoison on the spiçkes each day tro make sure NO cat comes BACK *mehehehehehehehe* and we put plates with "touch our piggies , your cat dies" on the front door with a nice picture of a cat with a magnum .773 in front of it on (/humor)

If you put piggies out for the first time , they may be scared and they need to adjust a little . But after a while we saw our family do so much popcorning around our garden that we thought they where doing some kind of ritual

Rat poison is not a smart idea. If any little bit of it got into the guinea pig enclosure, your piggies are as good as dead.

[mncavylover]

How will rat poison on the spikes help kill rats or keep cats away anyhow??? Just wondering. If it's not working and will endanger your pigs, maybe you should consider stopping... just a thought. =)