Hutch On The Making!

[kerriann]

so i cant get hold on any c&c cages here in gibraltar... so ive decided on a hutch . and where my dad works there are lots of Carpenter's his the store man where all the wood and all the things i need for my hutch goes! I hAVE 2 Plans

Plan (A) ASK DADDY really nicely if he could ask the carpenters to build me one with the plan I'm making he just has to give him all the supplys

Plan (b) daddy gives me all the supplys and i go to Grampa and well he never says noo and he used to be a carpenter and has nothing to do all day bored so I'm 99.9% SURE his not saying noo ... especially if i plan it all nicely out with measurements ect


sooo can you very nice people of this forum help me out a lilllllttleee pretty please and tell me what do you think a good size of length and width and hight is a hutch for my two female guinea mmmm if its big enough i can get around 5 in there (muahahaha) (evil lough my OH isnt reading this part (muahahaa) I'm planed it to be 2 floored with the little stairs to go upstairs

ooohh one more question do you recommend 2 doors on each level ? as in gibraltar there isnt that much of cold and they will be quiet hot in the summer if there isnt enough air going through they will be in my big balcony inside the house which has BIG windows Both sides and enough air goes through

if you got to this part well thank you for taking your time in reading this I'm reallyyyy excited now lets have piggie toes crossed he will say YES

 

[NatalieMT]

This is one of mine, if it helps -

As you can see it's two layers, but no stairs because the groups are split. Stairs/ramps are okay provided they are secure, not to steep and perhaps carpeted to help the piggies grip when they run up. Personally all my pigs are too set in their ways to use ramps, Peanut is 7 he isn't going to start climbing now! The only other downside with ramps is that they take up quite a lot of space.

In terms of size this is 8ft long, 2ft wide and 3ft tall. I have 3 piggies in the top layer (split into a 1 and a 2 by a wire mesh grid) and the bottom layer is just one big open space for 5 piggies. Ideally I'd like a little more space for 5 of them but it's pretty good. The bedding areas are either end just so they can get away from each other if needs be. Boo the texel is a little meany sometimes!

This is another hutch I have -

I think the dimensions on this are 6ft long, 2ft wide and 3.6ft tall. Only design flaw is the flat roof which has now been fixed although if your piggies are inside it won't matter for you. I think a 6ft double, with a ramp would be good for 4 piggies or so. Unlike mine you could just have a bedding area at the top and perhaps just do all the bottom floor in mesh and give them some pigloos and other things to hide in?

If you have relatives who are carpenters, hutches should be easy for them to make. The first hutch I got done by a professional carpenter and it's fantastic but the second one was made by my Dad and he has very few woodwork skills!

 

[kerriann]

wow fantastic information thank you i have already planned mine out as soon as its made i think this coming week my grandpa is going to start to make it for me i sketched him what i wanted which is

2 floors with 4 wire doors 2 in each level and we really going to make it 3 floors but the bottom one is going to be a mini cupboard for me to put all guinea stuff inside we are still not sure on the size what do you think for 2 piggies each floor being 4ft long - 2ft- width - 2ft high

 

[NatalieMT]

Yes 4ft by 2ft double tier would be fine for 2 piggies, but I wouldn't put any more than that in there. Just because ramps do take up space. If you want any more piggies I'd make it as big as possible. |) I bet it will be really exciting once it's all made, I just got my 8 ft hutch a few weeks and it was awesome when it arrived!

 

[kerriann]

well can you recommend me the size for 4 piggies ,,, just in case and ill think about it and see whats ill do thanks for your reply and shessss I'm excitedd

 

[Connie]

This site gives the square footage for varying numbers of piggies

http://www.guineapigcages.com/

Please note this square footage MUST be on one floor as piggies need to run laps to keep fit, if you wish to have two floors, one of them must be the recomended square footage (the size of the other one doesnt matter)

Hope this was helpful

Also, putting a side on your ramp would be good to avoid accidents.