Cavies Outdoors? Why It Simply Cannot Be Done

There are many good reasons why an outdoor guinea pig isn't a great idea. I know last time I posted, I included a bit of info on why the cage location for your cavy shouldn't be outdoors. GuineaLynx, a popular cavy website on health and care states, "Do not house your cavies outside: Temperature fluctuations can be very hard on your guinea pigs. Predators sometimes break into cages. A guinea pig inside will receive better care as you will catch health problems more quickly."

And here is another great website link that thoroughly describes this. http://guineapigsaustralia.com/oudoor%20housing.htm

And a UK website has a very nice statement in an article I've read:

"Indoor guinea pigs can have a spacious cage custom built around or over your furniture and storage. Indoor cages smell less without all that wood soaking up urine. Hutches do smell faster, and guinea pigs have much more sensitive noses than we do - they love to be clean. An indoor cage can be placed in a living room or other busy room and they will adjust their times of sleep to coincide with yours and your working hours. They will get excited and greet you even when they don't want fed. They will follow you around the room, come to fetch you from another, and most importantly of all, from all this observation you can spot illnesses far more quickly.

Guinea pig care and medical knowledge has improved drastically in the last 10 years, even in the last 5 years. Library books and vets are out of date, even the animal welfare organisations that bend over backwards for larger animals are failing smaller animals, including guinea pigs.

Just ask yourself this. Would you keep your cats or dogs in wooden boxes in your garden?

Guinea Lynx, Cavy Spirit, and Guinea Pig Cages all advocate indoor guinea pig living. Doing a search on any of the forums will provide you with plenty of the sad stories of illness and death that have befallen outdoor guinea pigs, on a far bigger scale than any of the illnesses we all sadly come across in any guinea pig."

Finally, there are several links I'll give you from the news about the dangers of outdoor piggie living(all supplied from the above UK website).

Dangers of Outdoor Housing:
Summer is Coming. Should You House Your GP Outside?
Outdoor vs Indoor
UK GP housed outside dies of heatstroke
GPs stolen from outdoor cage
2 GPs in outdoor cage killed by dog (on Animal Precinct)
HAWK, drops guinea pig in someone's yard
Violent thugs batter family pets to death
Thread about people breaking into outdoor hutches and sheds
2 guinea pigs stolen from outdoor shed
Guinea pig attacked by rats in shed
Magpies attacking GPs in their outdoor hutches
4 GPs dead. Cause is a suspected mouse infestation in shed and garden
Ant infested yard and hutches
Warning for those keeping animals(outside) I accidently cut that part off. LOL.

Guinea pigs stolen from "Cavy Sanctuary"
GPs stolen from outdoor garden
More Guinea pigs die of heatstroke
Guinea Pig Killed by Cat
Guinea Pigs Being Attacked by Cat

Alright. Here are the described reasons I wrote.

First of all, there's the temperature issue. Outdoors it is much too cold or hot for your pet guinea pig, and is is nearly impossible to keep your cavy warm enough. Why is the temperature such a big deal? The hair of a guinea pig is no thicker than the hair on a human head. And as we all know from being made to wear hats in the autumn and winter as small children, that hair doesn't keep you very warm! On top of that, guinea pigs lack the ability to sweat, meaning that when they heat up they have no physical way of cooling themselves down again. The death rate of pigs kept outside in summer, or even left unattended in a run is sadly high.

If you have not read my post (about guinea pig safety), it says that 

The link to the US Department of Agriculture site is here: http://awic.nal.usda.gov/final-rules-animal-welfare-9-cfr-parts-1-2-and-3

You will find several parts about outdoor housing which includes the part about guinea pigs. It's hard to find, but it's there.

I looked for outdoor guinea pig laws in Canada, Austrailia, the UK, etc, but all I found was several laws that had a lot to do with crossing the borders and such. When you cross Canada's border you must register guinea pigs and rabbits and other small animals, and I know for Austrailia you MUST have your bunny in quarantine before they can travel with because there has recently been myxomatosis(bunny disease) outbreaks in Austrailia. I found things like that but I couldn't find any outdoor guinea pig laws. 

Guinea pigs can literally die overnight from heatstroke. They have sensitive skin and their fur can make them very hot.

This picture is of a guinea pig suffering heatstroke. He is not dead, and if his owner acts quickly by wrapping him in a towel soaked in cool water, he may live. (By the way, this is a spitting image of my guinea pig, Iggy! Just realized that)

An overheated guinea pig will lie in water bowls and drink excess water.

Not just heat can kill a piggie. Guinea pigs don't tolerate cold as well as rabbits do. They have no fur on their feet and their ears are very sensitive.

A guinea pig that looks like this may be too cold - 

Huddling together and the fur with a ruffled appearance is a sure sign of a cold cavy. A shaking pig is also a sign of being too cold.

Guinea pigs do much better indoors because it is just too difficult to keep them warm or cool. Guinea pigs have much more of a health risk because of this reason than their indoor counterparts.

Next reason is, predators. The below image shows a very spacious, secure hutch. Most hutches like this are. 

So, why are us guinea pig enthusiasts so concerned about predators? Guinea pigs are incredibly shy, sensitive animals. Just the mere sight of a fox or coyote near the hutch, or a raccoon trying to open a latch or tear at the fencing can kill a guinea pig. They will run in a frenzy, wheeking and squeaking, trying to escape the predator. Sometimes the predator is the one who kills the cavy, other times they just die in fright. They can literally get a heart attack, leaving puzzled owners wondering why the guinea pig is found dead without a scratch.

Next reason is parasites. Guinea pigs can easily get little bugs like fleas, ticks, and even intestinal parasites brought on by feral cats and dogs nearby. If you have an outdoor guinea pig, it is guaranteed that they have some sort of bug.

This is a guinea pig with a flea problem:

Gross, huh? Then here's another picture of a guinea pig that unfortunately got ticks as well as ringworm. Guinea pigs indoors don't get these type of parasites unless there's another infected pet, then they do have a possibility of getting these nasty blood-sucking parasites.

Next reason is a quickie. Guinea pigs are much healthier indoors anyways, but if they do get sick, their owners can spot the problem right away. Outdoor guinea pigs aren't easy to care for - it can be hard to go outside to care for them everyday. No person can stay outside for as long as they can inside.

Here's a very important reason: outdoor guinea pigs receive much less attention than indoor piggies. They are bored with lack of human attention. Did you know - 

That's right. Three hours! Guinea pigs need tons of human interaction to be healthy and happy - even more if they are kept single.

So, after reading this, what do you think of keeping a guinea pig outdoors? It's not just for good health, there's really no reason to keep a companion animal if you're going to keep it outside away from you. You'll never get to enjoy the popcorning, the funny antics, and the joy of keeping pigs as pets. 

Deer Hunting Season, Corn Harvesting(whatever this is called) and Bunny-Blogging News! (Plus a lot of other random critter stuff!)

We have corn all around our house, and the front corn is being cut down. 

It's very exciting to see it be cut down by the interesting tractor equipment, but a lot of deer like to sleep in it, so they dart out when the tractors go through cutting down the corn. 

Please be very careful when driving by a corn patch to avoid accidents with deer and car collisions. 

Since I've made my first point, I'd like to move on. But first, here are some pictures (actually just one)of the tractors (not sure what these are really called but whatever) cutting down the corn.

A decent picture of our view of the.... tractor...harvesting..vehicles... Whatever they are called. Don't ask me.

Back to my next announcement - which is that I just wanted to tell all of our deer hunter friends to have a great hunting season!

 Can't wait to see if our deer hunting blind gets used this week.

 We already had lots of deer run into our already deer-infested yard due to the corn-cutting-down. 

Including three does rampaging into our backyard and breaking our horse pen, and a huge buck running with a humongous corn stalk tangled in his antlers. Quite a comical sight. 

Moving on to another announcement - a lot of hilarious antics are going on at Houseful Of Rabbits! (Sooooo... Check it out!!! ) (www.houseofrabbits.blogspot.com)  

And at Life With Reno Rabbits.... Gerald has passed away... ): 

Visit Life with Reno Rabbits for more info on sweet bunn Gerald.

Let's go to some better news. At

http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/, the authors announced their arrival home. 

You decide if the look on Dougal's face is disapproval or not! (:

I also have something any bunny owner may be interested in. If you live in or nearby Minnesota (wish I did, this thing looks fun!) your rabbit would love to go to Hoppy Hour, a fun playtime session for lots of rabbits in the organization called Minnesota Companion Rabbit Society. The website is http://mnhouserabbit.org

and it has all the information you need to know about Hoppy Hour. From what I read the only requirements is your rabbit needs to have a clean bill of health, and should be spayed or neutered(for obvious reasons and because they are less prone to fight with other bunns when spayed or neutered). Here's the info I pasted below:

Hoppy Hour

Bring your bunny for a chance to play with other bunnies! You are sure to have a great time watching all the bunnies and talking with other bunny lovers. On the bunny "playground" will be a few small agility obstacles for the buns to enjoy, but this is not a class. Mostly, its just a time to hang out and enjoy the cuteness of bunnies at play.

In order to participate, rabbits have to be sterilized and free of illness. Admission is $3/rabbit, but people are free and have just as much fun! Check the events calendar for dates and locations. There is no need to register, but if you are are a first-time attendee wanting to join us at the South Saint Paul location, please contact us to get the address and directions.

This sounds like loads of fun and your rabbits will certainly love this. Also it's such a coincidence that disapproving rabbits.com takes their bunns here and even had a few pictures for us.

As for our own pet rabbits, Daisy and Lily are both healthy and happy. I put a big stick in Daisy's pen for her to gnaw on, and apart from the noise of her chewing away at it and the cleanup of some wood pieces strewn all over, it's great! 

She says hello. 

Got a bit of snow yesterday, and a bit more on Monday, and it's been really cold. 

I also picked up the next books in the Warriors series today. I had to force myself to put them down long enough to do Critter Corner which is almost impossible - these books are unputdownable! But of course I had to post something so I did stop reading.

Power of Three -  Outcast

Very good installment of the ongoing series! I'm proud of myself that I got to Power Of Three already! 

This is the third book. I also got book four and five just in case - but these ones seem thicker than The New Prophecy, so I hope I have time to read all of them. 

Oh and whoever did not read the post about mice socialization please do. It was published after the one before it, for some reason, sorry. 

As for Minnie, she is sleeping.

Close up

Finally, I got a request a while ago about what rabbit food and hay I used.

 We use Oxford Timothy Hay(never alfalfa) and we just got Purina Rabbit Chow.

 Anyone considering getting this brand, read on. 

I love it because it's good quality, and the rabbits obviously do. The store-brand food we got just a while back was the same formula as the guinea pigs and hamsters. Bad for bunnies, though! We love Purina Rabbit Chow. 

It's very healthy and both bunnies have no more icky poop covered bottoms. This was an issue with the store-brand food - the food messes up the digestive systems and they get wet mushy poop stuck in their bottom fur. This is not only smelly but rubs off on clothes, and looks gross. Plus, the poor rabbits probably got lots of tummy pains and aches. "Gastrointestinal upset", it's called. So we got the new food. The price poses no issue for me - what matters is whether it's good quality and healthy or not. But still, it was a great price! 10 bucks for this size. Plus there are no colored dye "nuggets" in here or added treats, which is bad for bunnies. What I'm talking about is those little hard colored things in the rabbit food. The bag looks like this - It's called Complete. 

  

You probably notice the pellets are a little thinner than other pellets. I noticed that too. 

(Not how much there is actually in a bag, the other half is in a plastic container.) 

The bag even came with a feeding instruction tag - most rabbit foods don't do this. 

So I hoped you enjoyed my update post. I love doing these since they are so fun! 

Here's the re posted lists of products that do and don't test on animals. Just wanted to put it out there again.

Here Is A list of Brands that test on animals. It's obviously not a complete list but I will add onto it later on.


Aveeno
Avon
Banana Boat
Bounty
Cetaphil
Clearasil
Clinique 
Clairel
Coppertone
Covergirl
Dawn
Dove
Estée Lauder
Garnier
Glade
Herbal Essentials
Huggies
Hydroxatone
Johnson+Johnson-S.C.
Kaboom
Kleenex
Listerene
Lysol 
Lo'real
Maybelline
Mars Candy
Neutrogena
Olay
Oscar de larenta 
Oxiclean
P&G
Pantene
Post-it's 
Pledge
Pixi
Ralph Lauren
Revlon
Resolve
Scotch
Scott
Sephora
Sensodyne
Vaseline
Vicks
Windex
Woolite




Here's the other one: 

Yeah, I know. This is a short list. There's many more products out there. I'll be sure to add onto this one too. Okay guys, and listen, New York Color (NYC)is so confusing so I won't add it because their website never clarifies they REALLY do not test. Also several vegan websites state emails they sent inquiring about the testing were never replied.


100% pure
Acne Free
Almay
Avalon
Bare Essentials
Beauty Without Cruelty
Benifit
Bio-Oil
Blistex
Burt's Bees
Cerave
E.L.F
Eucerin
Free And Clear
GloMinerals
Gold Bond
Jergens
Nivea
Philosophy
Proactive Sol.
Revive
Sally Hansen
Sea Breeze
Simple
Bath &Body Works(Specially marked products)
Tre'semme




To see if they test of not, there is a symbol of a rabbit (the international poster child) that states cruelty free or says "not tested". Some products that do test say, FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE AND SAFETY WE TEST OUR PRODUCTS or some other thing like that. Remember, just because something says All Natural doesn't mean it helps nature or animals. Thats a common mistake when searching for only cruelty free products. I really have gotten into making others aware of testing on animals and how terrible it is even past April. It's especially horrible if you have a pet yourself and couldn't imagine anyone doing that to an animal.

My list was just of super common things that people have in their homes. (If you are unsure about New York Color you can do more research but from what I've seen it looks like the nail polish company does test.)

Edit: I can't delete the link to PETAs website and the Beauty wi/o bunnies from PETA.  I just won't paste it here. I don't choose to support PETA because they euthanize 99% of their rescued animals. Not always humanely either. Anyways, thank you for your support at Aprils Animal Cruelty Month at my blog! (:

Fall Fun

Daisy had some outdoor fun on her harness, and she loved to pose. No, seriously. She actually poses whenever I pull out a phone and snap a picture. She just freezes, It's not that she is scared, it's just she must know! Daisy loved romping in the leaves and let me bury her so only her head was sticking out. (:

Rats + outdoor playing/living = a good idea?🐁

Whether you're an experienced rat owner or a first-time rat owner, you may wonder... "Could I let my rat go outside to play?" The answer varies with different websites, but the right answer is always clear. Rats playing or living outdoors is not safe!

Harnesses and Pens: Extreme Danger

Everyone's seen them. Rat harnesses look fun, but pose a threat to rats. First of all, if you put on the rat harness the wrong way or it has been designed poorly so it feels uncomfortable, your rat will want to escape the harness's feeling on his body. He's likely to chew or squeeze out, leaving you with no more rat. Predators like birds of prey or feral cats and dogs could scare your rat as well, causing him to panic and get twisted in the harness. So it's closing for the harness idea, but what about other playtime solutions, like a playpen?

A rat owner who knows rats well doesn't have to use their own experience with pet rats to know that all rats are great climbers! Obviously, any open-top playpen would be too easy for an intelligent rat. Closed-top playpens look safe, but even a sturdy one couldn't keep out unwanted predators, dangerous parasites, and worst of all, heat. Besides, for a few minutes the fresh air would seem nice to a rat, but it would quickly get boring and very hot. An ideal way to let your rat get a bit of fresh air is to carry his cage onto a clean, covered deck or patio and sit out with him for no more than 10 minutes. Never take him out of the cage even for a minute, as any predator could spook him. 

Can I keep my rat cage outdoors?

Inexperienced, first-time rat owners may think keeping a rat outdoors is okay. As many people think all rabbits and guinea pigs belong outdoors, rats are put into this concept. Although rabbits and guinea pigs can normally survive outside,(although the boredom they encounter is considered cruelty) rats will become sick and/or the first few days of outdoor living.

Not only will your rat(s) need attention and human contact, he will also get sick from parasites, heat exhaustion, and exposure to wild rodents, which he could transfer diseases from and pass them to other people or domestic animals. A rat outdoors is no fun for the owner because they will only go out to clean the cage and give him food and water, and the owner will not get to experience the benefits of a great pet rat. Any animal relegated to a hutch or outdoor confinement will be bored and act boring towards the owner. Besides, how can you create fun mazes, train your rat to do cool tricks, and relax in front of the TV with your rat if he lives outside? A true rat owner wouldn't keep a rat outside to die, but he or she would want to create a great environment for the rat and help him have the best 3-4 years he lives up to. No form of outdoor living can top the tremendous love a rat can offer when living inside with his family. Rats don't live that long, do its up to you to help him live his life to the fullest. Be sure to keep your pet rat indoors when having him as a pet. There really is no point in getting a rat if he is left outdoors, because all you are doing is keeping him alive if he's left outside. Be a good pet owner and keep all pet rats indoors only. You will be rewarded with a happy rat that can fully experience the best life you can give him.

I mean, what life is without cuddles, kisses, and a happy, healthy pet rat ready to be your best friend? Not any life I know! 

The placement of your rat's cage is very important!