On Apr 5, 8:40=A0pm, Scorpio <mwhit...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> On Apr 5, 7:38=A0pm, Kelvyn <mess...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > The back half of my outside cage has a slightly raised wooden floor.
Thi=
s
> > is not hard to make and keeps then off the cold ground, then they are
> > inside a small cardboard box on this raised wooden floor. The front
half=
of
> > the cage is where they can jump down onto the grass. The cold wind
cause=
s
> > the most problems i think so something to prevent that is good. In the
> > colder nights i bring both my pigs inside however as i would worry
about=
> > them being outside.....even though it doesnt get so cold here (north
> > island,new zealand)
> > kelvyn
>
> > No Guinea Pigs were harmed during the writing or sending of this post.
>
> Ok where do you put them inside? Do you have an inside cage or
> something or just use a cardboard box?
>
> Megan
Hi Megan
I used to keep my pigs outside, but as we had rabbits too, foxes were
visiting on a regular basis and freaking everyone out so the pigs came
to live indoors with us. They had a large cage in their own room -
'the pigs' room and only went into the run outside when supervised.
I'm ashamed to say that the first winter they spent some time in a
shed but the thermometer was reading zero and my vet told me they
could have died. I think GPs lived originally in very cold weather
but our domestic ones have maybe lost their tolerance to cold.
Anyone???? Kelvyn's solution to the problem sounds good to me if you
can't have them indoors, as lots of layers will insulate them -
newspaper and cardboard are very warm. You can even buy gel pads that
go in the microwave nowadays. We always wrapped our bunnies in a heavy
duty tarpaulin at night and this kept the foxes out. Rabbits are
better insulated as they have fur but GPs have hair like us. One night
a mouse got in and the 3 of them were all happily having breakfast
together when we opened the tarp.
I think a problem probably arises if you keep moving them quickly
between widely varying temperatures as an animals blood viscosity
(thickness due to red cells) changes in response to the cold. They
need to acclimatize to one set of conditions or another. So what I'm
saying is don't have them at 5 degrees in the day outside and then
bring them into 24 degrees C centrally heating etc. Note my ignorance
of temp changes in NZ!!!
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