If you are hot then your guinea pig is also hot. If you are cold then your guinea pig is also feeling that way. Use how you are feeling as a guide as to what is right for your pet.
Ideally guinea pigs should be housed indoors where we can control the elements more and always have the temperatures correct. But this is not usually what we find and many guinea pigs are commonly housed outdoors.
So lets look at some ways that you can great improve their living conditions.
Firstly, if they are in a wooden hutch, ensuring that it is properly protected from the elements – particularly sun and rain, is essential. Most wooden style hutches have a coating on the top that they sell to you as a “weather proof”cage. This is not the case. Water can seep in through any of the joins and this will then impact the health of the guinea pig.
Most guinea pig wooden cages have an enclosed hutch area. If you are wanting your guinea pigs to stay warm you need to ensure they have a lot of hay, so that they can move withing it. I would put at least 5 inches of hay in the hutch area ( not including the shavings and paper layers underneath).
If you want to provide your piggies with a warm bottle this can be placed under a soft cloth and the piggie will stay on or near it to get warmth. There are also microwavable stones that do this job and they retain their heat for considerable time – about 8 hours.
You can always tell if your guinea pigs are cold. They will not be relaxed and settled in the cage, but rather hunched and standing. The most ideal situation is to have them brought indoors into an indoor cage for the duration that it is cold.
