Swilkinsons Hutches!

We are commonly asked about where we keep our piggies and how we manage to house over 30 of them when both Laura and I are still teenagers. The truth is we are very very lucky! We live in the heart of the countryside and have plenty of grass for the piggies to graze on all Summer!

Most of our piggies live in hutches in an enclosed area against a building (pictured bellow). We find this very suitable as having 30 guinea pigs living in the house may upset the family!

We live in the UK, where the weather is usually pretty average, so having the guinea pigs outside has never been a problem. Guinea pigs do in fact originate from a climate where the night time temperatures do fall very low, and we believe in giving our pigs a life that's as healthy and natural as possible!

Our other guinea pigs live in a shed (where the hutches pictured below are), which is no warmer than outside but keeps the piggies (and us!) well sheltered. The four tiered hutch below, 4 foot by 2 foot, is perfect for the boars we have on their own. Ideally they would be with another guinea pig, but these things happen, and when you have alot of piggies, you will get some falling out!

We currently have 13 used hutches and each one is different! They are all wooden and very large! For example we have a big herd of sows living in an 8 foot long, double tier hutch.

We are often switching up the toys in the hutch to give them various enrichment and constant stimulation. The pictures below show some of the toys we use! Most of our toys are brought online from viovet.co.uk. Click the photos to go there!