outside time

[Bat]

It's just started to rain, and i have been outside waterproofing the guinea-pigs run against what appears to be a fairly heavy summer shower.

I was wondering, how much time do other guinea-pigs spend outside, in summer ours spend several hours out there, from about 9am till 10pm at weekends, and when it rains we just waterproof parts of the cage.

The run is about 1.5 meters by 2m, and split in half because the girls don't get on, while they're otuside they ussually have a couple of different shelters each, and water bottle, plus all the grass they can eat, if they're out for more than four hours they will also have more substansial food, although they seem to prefer the grass, and I have never known them eat anythign but grass and treats while they are outside.

The run is fairly cat proof, although I wouldn't leave them there completely unsupervised, and our local neighbourhood cats are scared of our garden (Our guinea-pigs are allowed to roam freely around at times, so I apply liberal amounts of water to any cat I see, we have a neighbour who has about ten, and too many edible pets)

The guinea-pigs love lawn time, although they do spend a lot of it sunbathing (including on one occasion, when we put three young males in with Moe, their dad, a guinea-pig pyramid, with Moe crashed out, with two babies lieing ontop of him, and benjy flopped across the top of the pile, Moe seemed a bit confused, but not overly fussed).

So, h0ow much time do other piggles spend on the lawn?
And what do they get up to?

[patnjackmom]

Guinea Pigs should not spend a long period of time outside only an hour at the most at all because they are very suseptible to heat stokes and they could end up with severe respitory infections if it is too damp outside

[Bat]

The climate over here may be different then, there is little danger of heatstroke as long as they have plenty of shade, and permanant access to water. they will certainly be better of out in the run than in their hutches. The guinea-pigs live in the shed all of summer, spring and autumn. Given the choice they prefer to wander across the lawn to the living room. It may be because it is how they were raised.

I forget that other places are not the same as here, but long periods of time on the grass aren't too much of a health risk here, and as long as they are properly monitored I don't feel it is a problem here.

[Laurie]

Mine go out once a week on cooler days or evenings for about an hour. It takes me about that long to get them all out there and back again

I have a pen set up outside for them and they are supervised.

They love the fresh grass! I also planted lettuce in the pen area. Next year I think I'll plant some parsley and cilantro where they graze instead of in my vegetable garden. They'll never want to go back in!

[BrendaLynn]

I think the weather in the US gets pretty extreme so most of us probably don't let them out as much as people in the UK do. I wish our weather was milder like yours. I hate the extremes!