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Degus Pics!

Its easier if i list the woods you can use as the ones you can't would fill a page or two on here :crazy:

Safe woods for degus are as follows:

Eating apple
Hazelnut
Hawthorn
Kiln dried pine

Always try to make sure it is organic, untreated and has no paint of pesticides on it!

As for the diet as long as you don't overfeed them and don't give them to many treats they are fine and they make fantastic pets :)
 
i've had my pair of male degus for about 3 1/2 years now, they really are great - theyre not as keen on being handled as my shaws jirds are (or my rats were) but theyre much more interesting to watch. they do develop really close bonds too, and pay a lot more attention to each other than the jirds or rats do too. they'll spend hours grooming each other, although each of them will push their luck to see if they can get the other to do more of the grooming!! they do occasionally fall out, and have proper huffs with each other, involving a lot of tail shaking, and turning their backs on each other; but these never last long and usually involve peanuts or other treats

stagette, do you have any links to the research re the reclassifications? i'd understood them to be closer to guinea pigs than chin's but am always curious to find out more. i suppose a reclassification would still make sense as theres dispute about whether guinea pigs are rodents too

re the diet point, cant emphasise enough the problems that sugar causes, my g/f had a single degu before i got mine that developed diabetes and the associated problems (inc cateracts) that unfortunately caused it to die prematurely at about 2 years of age. A lot of pet shops still sell degus with a woeful lack of good info about their care. if you are going to offer sweet treats such as raisins etc then its worth making it very occasional. I feed mine on chinchilla mix without fruit pieces. theyre housed in a 3 storey ternziani cage, which seems to be plenty of room for a pair. I've seen aiviaries housing larger colonies, and would love the space to do this one day....

Unfortunately my pair suffer from maloclusions of their rear molars so its regular, expensive trips to the vets for me to trim them back to their correct length -a general anasthetic procedure so not cheap.
 
Sorry, i forgot about my post!

Thanks for all your POTM nominations(I guess ill just choose which pic since no one was specific :p ) and all the "awww :wub: " compliments lol.

Black angel your cage sounds too perfect for more than couple of degus to adventure in. Our pair of girls degus are obsessed about their large 11 inch wheel, they both run on it at the same time, day and night( :X ). I give my degus(we have 2 pairs now) apple tree sticks to naw on and their diet is composed: of some seed mix, chinchilla pellets, guinea pig pellets, one or two lab blocks, few raw pasta noodles, timothy hay, and fresh romaine lettuce with few carrots. With every animal i own i make sure they have varied diet(even my fish have large menu!). I'm sure you wouldn't be too happy if you had to live on bread and water all your life.
 
Thanks for all the info. Its my birthday in June, so who knows, if i drop enough hints i might get a couple. :)
 
They sell those at my local petstore. I held one there, and I would like to buy a pair. Do you know of any sites where there is a list of what tey need...or could you give me some info. I don't trust the pet store ppl. lol, this is the type of store that just wants you to buy...you know what I mean. I want to know what is best.
 
I have that book and its very very good and very informative especially if your starting out in the hobby :)

Your right probably not to over trust pet store people as a lot do get it wrong and your always best to go in knowing your stuff so they can't con you or trick you into buying anything unneccessary, there are good shops out there and there are bad so always best to be on your gaurd :S Theres a lot of good websites out there with info on and i'd be happy to help you with any questions if you have any as i've been keeping degu's for 6 nearly 7 years and i have done a lot of research into them over the years and can help on anything you might need to know :)

I'll just run through the basics for you. If you are going to get a pair please get a same sex pair as degus can breed pretty frequently, a female can get pregnant straight after giving birth if the male isn't removed for 3 to 4 days afterwards and this could kill her unfortunately :( So either get two females or two males. You want to make sure they look in good health so they should have nice bright clear eyes (no signs of cataracts or illness), a nice sleek shiny coat (there should be no fur missing and it shouldn't be ruffled up), a nice bristley tail, good orange teeth and should above all look healthy and not be sat in a corner hiding as degu's are inquisitive by nature so should be coming upto you if the cage or tank is opened. Never get just get one degu as a single degu is a lonely degu and they can get depressed pretty easily so always buy a pair or more!

Basically for a pair of degus your looking at a cage size of 70(l) x 70(h) x 44(w) cm that is the minimum size really and at that you should be aiming to let them out at least once a day. The bigger the cage the better as despite there smallish size they require a lot of room, a fact that’s always stuck with me is degu's need a shelf per degu don't know how true or accurate this is but I’ve stuck to this and never had a problem. You ideally want to get a cage with a metal base as degu's are gnawers and will have a go at anything and plastic bases normally get chewed through pretty quickly. I recently took in two rescues and they had been in plastic cages and they were being held together with string as they had absolutely wrecked them :rolleyes: In the cage its good to add things like branches (I listed the safe woods for degus in an earlier post in this thread), rope as they love to climb, a solid exercise wheel, a sandbath in order to keep their coat nice and clean, a nesting box or a hammock (mine have both and go between the two), tunnels or terracotta flower pots for playing hide and seek in and any other toy that you fancy, the good thing about degu’s is that they make use of even the slightest things so always fun to watch no matter what you add :)

The next thing is their diet. It has to be pretty frugal and they are not pets you can spoil. Degu's cannot digest too much sugar it can cause them to become diabetic (something they can be prone too) so their diet has to be pretty plain. I feed mine a mixture of guinea pig biscuits, gertie guinea pig food and a specially made up degu mix. They also have veggies to supplement this and for a treat the odd nut, raison, pieces of shredded wheat, wholemeal bread (they go mad for it when its been oven baked), bran flakes and dried carrot. They also need a fresh supply of water everyday and good quality hay or dried grass!

They make wonderful pets and theres never a dull moment when theres a degu around as they are always upto something fun or mischievous. Thats pretty much the basics if theres anything else you want to know then i'd be happy to help you :)
 
Agreed stagette. Our pair of male degus can completely chew up a kleenex box during one night fall. They're like friggin beavers! lol. Unforunately we found out too late as they practically nawed over 40% of the new and not so cheap plastic sleeping dome we bought them. :crazy: . So now only cardboard boxes for them(but those still don't last). :p
 
ive found the inner cardboard rolls that you get carpets on to be the best thing for them - they are so thick that they last them ages. the gnawing is good though as it helps keep their teet trimmed. 18" sections of carpet roll tube seem to last the degus months. My jirds on the other hand can demolish several in a week!!!
 
chris_1127 said:
ive found the inner cardboard rolls that you get carpets on to be the best thing for them - they are so thick that they last them ages. the gnawing is good though as it helps keep their teet trimmed. 18" sections of carpet roll tube seem to last the degus months. My jirds on the other hand can demolish several in a week!!!
Click to expand...
Lol.....do you know i went to great lengths to get my boys some of those and they haven't touched them instead they went back to chewing up their lovely wooden house :rolleyes:
 
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