Fuzzy Torpedoes
Chirping
- Sep 7, 2017
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Down in Oklahoma lately we haven't had much of a "winter" these past couple years so I'm also debating keeping them out like the rabbits.
Beware that during the thousands of years when guinea pigs were being domesticated, for that whole time, they were kept in houses. They were kept running around in a back room with a ledge at the doorway, where people stepped over but the ledge kept their guinea pigs in. Guinea pigs were living at the same room temperature, with the same draft conditions (or lack of draft) that the people maintained for themselves. They were not kept outside.
This domestication situation started something like 5000 - 9000 years ago. All those hundreds and hundreds of years in those rooms, in those houses, formed the guinea pigs we have today. There is no wild cavia porcellus. It was born and made in those rooms.
In the 1500s, the first guinea pigs were brought over to Europe, ie: 500 years ago. They were kept indoors there, too.
That's the core of the guinea pigs we have today. Housing them outdoors means doing something to them that has not been done since the beginning of their existence. If it's done it would have to be done with the utmost of care, and the conditions would need to be right for them despite them being outdoors.