Is it illegal to keep guinea pigs in your living room

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Fufu

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Does anyone know what the rules are on keeping your guinea pigs in your house? What about hay in your house etc, are there any health and safety issues that could be brought up? Can't find anything relevant on RSPCA website? Some people are a bit shocked to see them in our house -I wouldn't eat to be reported; they help regulate my daughter.
 
I think people who had guinea pigs many years ago and dont know the updated info and might assume they should be outside.
My piggies are inside and I’ve had a few surprised comments but then after it’s always been positive 🥰
 
A lot of people have guinea pigs indoors. I'm Canadian, all our pigs are indoors here, it's either too cold or too hot for them outdoors. They wouldn't survive our climate unless an outdoor shed was fully insulated and heated/cooled.

Mine are in our family room. They're fine there, they are very used to all the people coming and going!
 
I live in Austria. Around here and especially in Germany there is a loud community on social media who think that guinea pigs should be kept outside in fancy habitats. But it certainly isn't forbidden to keep guinea pigs inside.
Mine have been living in my living room for years and years and I always feel that this is the perfect place in my flat for them.
Even if I would live in a house with garden, they wouldn't live outside full time.
 
People who are shocked to see guinea pigs in a house are well out of step with welfare improvements and more recent developments in keeping guinea pigs. There has been a general worldwide shift to keeping them as indoors pets because you get a lot more interaction and enjoyment out of them as well as climate considerations in countries with less than ideal outdoors conditions.

Piggies need plenty of cage space since they are a ground roaming and not a climbing species. Any staples foods (hay, pellets, dry or forage or treats) should be kept dry and away from direct sunlight, the same as any other pet species foods. Just normal common sense and hygiene.

If you are renting your accommodation, then it is in your landlord's discretion whether indoors pets are allowed or not. Only if you are breaking the conditions of your individual contract are you doing something illegal.

That is why the other current trend is for insulated sheds in the UK if indoors keeping is not an option for you. Many commercially available hutches are frankly sub-standard.

We have got a members indoors cage gallery. It is of all our various gallery threads by far the most popular. :)
daftscotslass

Thread 'Member Gallery: C&C cages/homemade cages'

C&C and homemade member cages


Please use this thread to post pictures of your C&C cages or other similar home-made housing. Try to include some information with the photo like:

Cage Type
Where it was purchased or how it was made
What size it is
How many piggies are kept in it
How easy it is to keep clean/if you'd recommend it

Bear in mind that new members will look to this thread as an example of good piggy keeping so photos of accommodation that is inadequately sized, dirty or overcrowded may be removed at the discretion of admin.

This thread is NOT for...
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With the climate change, guinea pigs actually need more protection with weather extremes and larger temperature jumps. Traditional hutches can quickly become death traps.
Wiebke

Thread 'Hot Weather Management, Heat Strokes and Fly Strike'

1 How do guinea pigs regulate their body temperature?
2 Heat stroke: symptoms and treatment
- Symptoms of overheating (heat exhaustion)
- Symptoms of heat stroke
- On the spot treatment for heat stroke
- Persistent loss of appetite and lethargy in the days after
3 Fly strike and flesh eating maggots
4 What can I do to keep my guinea pigs cool?...
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I hope that this helps you?
 
loving the advice. It does beg the question, why have something to then put it outside “out of sight out of mind”. Dogs are indoors, so are cats (relatively). It’s a old fashioned concept of keeping guinea pigs outside, whilst there can be very good reasons for doing so, times are a changin’
 
Ours began outside, but we soon learned that it was too cold for them in winter (in the UK) so we moved them to the insulated shed with a radiator. Then we had to move them into the coolest room in the house one summer as it was too hot, no matter what measures we took. They popcorned when they were finally cool again. They now live in my sister's bedroom full-time and I much prefer it. Going outside after dark was always grim. There are no risks from predators inside the house (we have no other pets) and it's cosier for evening clean-outs. I find it sad when people don't care so much for them, seeing them more as garden ornaments. There's no way we can forget their dinner time with those loud wheeks whenever someone is remotely near their room at 4pm!
 
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