Outdoor hutch

[mousehole]

I have been taking care of my daughter's chinchilla for a while now and have noticed that he really enjoys sitting next to the patio door side of his pen when I open it to get some fresh air. I know the weather is not appropriate now but I would like to make an outside hutch where he could go to play when the weather gets nicer. I love the little guy and would never do anything to harm him so I'm asking on the forum before I begin building if it's safe for chinchillas to be outside for short periods of time.
This won't be my first Chinchilla project, I didn't like the cage sizes that were available when my daughter first got her chinchillas and build her a 4x4x5, three story chinchilla cage. Sadly she has since moved and as there was no room for her deluxe cage it was given away.
Any suggestions or advice would be welcomed, and there's no rush as I have months of time in which to build.

 

[ArmyWife]

Are you planning on keeping him outside when the weather gets nicer? I don't think having a chinchilla outside is a good idea since it's so important to maintain the temperature of the room their in. I would stick with keeping him inside.

 

[mousehole]

Oh no - this would be for an hour or so only. He seems to enjoy the smells and sounds from outside so I wanted to make sure he was safe while enjoying it. I wouldn't want him to get overheated so I was figuring maybe an hour around suppertime ( weather permitting of course) I saw in the pet store harnesses for the chinchilla... something I would never be comfortable using, and thought that perhaps a smaller cage would be safer.

 

[greychins]

I personally wouldn't put a chin outside, even if the weather was perfect. Even if, say, the day was 65 out and the chin wouldn't get overheated, there's still the possibility of being in direct sunlight, of stray cats/dogs/large-predatory-birds stopping by to see what's going on. I know here, we'd have squirrels galore climbing all over anything outside. I have to watch what I put outside to dry cause the squirrels sometimes take off with things. Any of those could potentially bring harm to the chin. A cat could swipe at the chin and the cut could get infected, a squirrel could get on top of the cage and poo, and the chin could decide the squirrel poo's a new treat. A leaf could fall into the cage that's been sprayed with some pesticide (like here, they spray for mosquitos and it's on all the trees/leaves) and the chin could eat it. Too many what if's. I just wouldn't.

 

[mousehole]

Thank you for your input ladies. I will let him smell the air from the safety of the playpen ( with the screen door firmly latched to prevent tragedy. ) I just want to do whats right for the little guy. I have gotten very attached to him and will miss him when he goes back to his mom - aka my daughter.