Malteser's degu blog

Thanks DC. I've already got the next post in mind, however I am at my cousin's flat in London, using her laptop which does not have a functioning 'e' and 'x' button's on the keyboard. I'm having to copy and paste the letters in which is driving me mad! Seeing as I'm back home tomorrow I'm postponing the post until then!

Since I adopted my two girls I have been feeding them the same style of diet, which seems to be almost, but not quite, to fred's 50:50 proportion diet.

I have broken down their diet into three components: the main hard feed, the diet enhancement, and treats. The main hard feed is your pellets, muesli, etc., plus hay. The diet enhancement is what is being called on other websites as treats, i.e. the dried flowers, grains, and so on. I do not, and never have, believed that these are treats as they are part of the degu's natural diet. And finally the treats are just that, treats. Not to be fed as part of their regular diet, and ideal for training, so basically your oats, pieces of fruit, and so on.

THE MAIN DIET

• Xtravital degu food: this is a muesli-based hard feed and I give my girls a shot glass full each morning, so approximately 10g.
  
• Science Selective degu food: this is a baked, biscuit-style food containing alfalfa, barley, wheat flour, wheatfeed, peas, soybean meal, broccoli, oats, soy oil, minerals, spinach, basil, and a pinch of salt. It seems to have a good balance of nutritional percentage, and I feed them a square each in the evening.
  
• Hay: at the moment they are having the Burgess Excel timothy hay with added marigolds and dandelions. Sometimes I also give them an alfalfa block.
  

DIET ENHANCEMENTS

• JR Farm Meadow Flower: hmm, just went to check out the ingredients of this and there isn't a great description. Basically it's gently dried pasture grass with aromatic flowers. However the girls love this. I give the girls a big lump every day or couple days. I normally buy it from Zooplus.
  
• Burgess Excel Mountain Flowers: I normally buy this whenever I see it at pet shops or big garden centres. It contains Dandelion, Milk Thistle, Coltsfoot Leaf, Chamomile, Parsley, Sage, Hibiscus, Fennel Seeds, Rose Petals, Sunflower Petals. It can also be bought from Burgess themselves here. Again whenever I have it I give the girls a big lump every couple days or so. Also I always make sure I have either the mountain flowers or meadow flowers (basically a flower mix) in their food box. These flower mixes make up almost 50% of their diet and are added as a complement to the hard feed discussed above.
  
• Dandelion leaves and flowers: this is the P@H Woodlands Dandelion Feast. The girls adore dandelions so sometimes instead of the mixed flower I give them just dandelions. Sometimes both.
  
• Dandelion roots: the girls go absolutely mad for this. I get it from Zooplus, it's the JR Farm Dandelion Root. Basically it's on par with oats in starting the degu wars! Because of this I take advantage of it and instead of putting it in the food bowl I hand feed it to them and use it as a training aid. The beauty of this is that you can feed them lots more than you would oats, for example, or sunflower seeds.
  
• Herbal Delight: bought from P@H Woodlands Range. I either hand feed this picking out the bits, or I scatter it as a forage. Contains the following ingredients: Meadow Grass, Flaked Wheat, Flaked Oats, Wheat, Flaked Peas, Popped Wheat, Parsley (min. 6%), Carrot, Carob, Alfalfa, Popped Corn, Flaked Corn, Beetroot (min. 2%), Lemon Balm, Peppermint (min. 2%), Marigold.
  
• Dried Parsley stalks: this, along with the meadow flowers, form part of the JR Farm Coarse Feed. I'm now growing my own parsley so will try drying the parsley myself.
  
• Twiggy Treats: part of the P@H woodlands range. It contains apple, birch and linden twigs. This is my shameful secret as i live out in the countryside however I am not confident enough yet to identifying trees. However, I have tried sourcing apple twigs and I haven't had much luck in all honesty yet. With this I make sure the girls always have some in their cage.
  
• Millet: they currently have yellow Foxtail millet. I give them a whole spray about once a month. This I buy from any bird section in pet shops.
  
• Fresh rose petals: a firm favourite and one of only two food items that the girls will eat fresh. If I am ever at a friend's house that have roses in the garden I'll always get them some.
  
• Frozen peas: the other item that they will eat fresh!
  
• Dried broccoli: the P@H Woodlands Broccoli Heaven. The girls do love this, and now I'm going to try drying my own... advice always welcome I feed them this once or twice a week or so.
  

TREATS

• Oats!: I normally buy any supermarket basics porridge oats with nothing added. However I need to find a health food shop near where I live as I want to get the rolled oats - basically the same thing except the oat pieces are bigger and more intact so easier to feed.
  
• Pasta: I give them a single piece of dried pasta every other day or two days. Something manageable like penne or the spiral one.
  
• Sunflower seeds: this one is tricky. Very rarely I give them a sunflower seed each. I keep the amount very low as, like everybody else, I've read that it's not that good for the goos, especially if one is diabetic. However I'm starting to rethink this.
  
• Baked treats: any baked treat that is degu safe from the Chinchillas2Shop. This is a great shop to get lots of natural treats for your degus, including flower mixes and bags of individual dried flowers. The only thing that puts the baked treats into the treat section is basically money.
  
• Wood rolls: I get these from either P@H, Zooplus, or Chinchillas2Shop. They're basically hollowed out logs filled with herbs, flowers, and seeds. Again, the reason this is only a treat is due to money.
  
• Other random things: random items that I buy whenever I see on special offer at pet shops, like the Burgess Excel Rolled grass snacks. Again, not technically treats but it ends up being as such.
  

Hopefully the lists above give a fairly comprehensive idea of what I feed the girls. As you can see their diet is not solely based on the hard feed and is complemented by lots of flowers, herbs, etc. The one thing I did notice, however, is that there is a lack of seeds and nuts, and a fairly big proportion of wheat-based products. So it looks like I'll need to rethink the "Diet enhancement" part.

In my first post I mentioned that when I adopted the girls Nutmeg was blind. At P@H they fed her the degu pellets plus random treats (hopefully all degu safe, which I think so as the lady that sold them to me was very knowledgeable about the degus and gave good advice, mainly as she owned degus and recommended this forum plus degutopia). When I got the girls I used to feed them the P@H pellets plus everything else on the list - they soon decided they did not like the pellets, and who can blame them faced with a choice of a lovely range of flowers and herbs, or boring pellets! ;D Within a couple months Nutmeg's eyes cleared up, leading me to believe that the cataracts were diabetes-related, not congenital cataracts. She now leads a lovely, healthy, cataract-free lifestyle, where she can jump up to ledges to her heart's content!

Thanks fred

When I first got the girls I also bought them the P@H nuggets as that was what they were on. However I immediately started seeking out other more natural foods as I instinctively thought that just pellets is not good for them, may be nutritionally good but not that exciting. So I started reading up about what treats I could get the girls. Then I found all the flowers and grasses they could have as a treat so started giving them those. After a short while I just thought, hang on, this is what they eat in the wild, so how can it be a treat?! A treat, for me, is having chocolate cake, NOT what you would normally eat everyday. Hence why I came up with diet enhancement rather than treats.

However I was never sure if I could achieve a a balanced diet without the pellet (or now muesli) hard feed. It was also when I had been feeding them all the extra stuff that I also started rethinking the whole issue about not feeding them too many leaves and flowers as it's not good for them. I just thought, well, it's all dried, how much water content can there be, plus as it's the degu's natural diet their digestive system is designed to cope with high levels of greens.

So now, as you can see, I still feed hard food but I'm nowhere near the amounts I should be giving them if it was just hard feed.

As for the trees, well, my excuse is I'm a marine biologist... not sure what yours is though ;D

@ Alexia
That is a very large list of dietary enhancements/supplements ! Well done on providing Cinnamon and Nutmeg with such a varried diet ! You are taking on this project, head on !

I am currently working on the same thing as you; adding more seeds and grains to the diet.
Fred has posted photos and a description of the wonderful seed mixes he uses in the 50% natural feed project thread.

You need to post some photos for us ! ;D

OOOO!! So exciting!!! Can't wait! How fun for you, Malteser60. You'll be marveling at how fast pups are, LOL!!

So, I have come back home from fuzzymum's house with two beautiful degu girls. They are so tiny compared to mine.

However I don't think they really liked the car journey very much. Right now one is hiding in the house and the other is hiding in the log.

I'm going to leave them alone so they can settle in, but I do hope that the journey hasn't scared them too much and that by tomorrow they will be out and about. I was so looking forward to a bit of bonding time tonight.

Edit: Yay, they've come out of the hidey holes (after 1.5 hours) and are having a sniff around. Thank goodness! Phew! I was so worried about them. However I will still leave them to it, let them get comfortable.

Update tomorrow.

So, yesterday was one tense day concerning my degus! As you all know I have taken two of fuzzymum's baby degus to integrate with my two degus as I feel a colony of four is better than just the two of them. This was confirmed for me when I saw fuzzymum's colony all together, the interaction between all the degus was wonderful and it reassured me that I was doing the right thing.

Anyhow, back to the introduction process, and how four degus almost managed to give me a heart attack! I still haven't named the two pups so for now I'll call them little pup and big pup

Little pup is, as her name says, the smaller of the two. She's more timid and quieter than her sister big pup, although once you're holding her and letting her explore you she becomes a right little wriggler. Big pup is more confident than little pup, the first to come out of any hiding place and seems eager to follow the lead of Cinammon and Nutmeg. However big pup had a few surprises of her own!

So, pups picked up from fuzzymum on Friday night, and as I wrote they did not like the car journey over, to the point they just hid for over an hour. One hid in a log with a bend in it, and I seriously thought she got stuck in there. After a while they came out and my boyfriend and I spent a good hour playing with the pups on the sofa, letting them get used to use. Despite being timid in coming out they are used to being handled from the beginning so they had no problems with that. We also put the cage up against Cinammon and Nutmeg's cage and there were lots of reassuring noises from both parties. So we took a gamble and let them both meet on neutral territory, aka my bed!

That first meeting went brilliantly well in my opinion. The pups did what amie said they would and immediately started shouting MOMMY to Cinammon and Nutmeg. Cinammon and Nutmeg started grooming the pups and tey even lifter their legs to make it easier. The meeting was then curtailed when Cinammon and Nutmeg decided that exploring was far more interesting than the pups and became very boisterous.

So, the following day, heartened by the previous night's success I decided to try and progress the introductions. This time things were a bit more tense! A second meeting took place on our living room floor, with the pups going over for their grooming. However this time Cinammon and Nutmeg decided that they would start the dominance issue now, which thoroughly scared the pups so they went and hid under their wheel (I had the thickets cage on the floor with the door open). Cinammon was the gentler of the two however Nutmeg, my lord she was boistrous and rough, determined to show all that she was top goo - even Cinammon was put in her place. That worried me quite a bit so I seperated them back into their own respective cages.

By now I had already swapped bedding and they were still next to each other. And again there were lots of reassuring noises so I thought, ok, we'll have another meeting in a neutral place (the bathtub) and I'll swap the degus round. Before that, however, I thought I would sort out the big cage and attach the eye holes onto the bottom of the top shelf so that I could hang a hammock and thus breaking a fall from the top shelf. That was me being optimistic that in the end all would go well.

So, there I was hand in cage screwing in the eyelets, with Cinammon and Nutmeg helping of course, and my boyfriend had the pups out and playing with them. Unknown to me, however, big pup crawled onto my shoulder and into the cage. I thought, oh no oh no, this is not going to go well. Cinammon and Nutmeg are not going to appreciate a goo just wandering into their territory. So, with heart in hand I sat and watched, terrified for the little ones.

The result: lots and lots and lots of dominance humping, little fights that almost became proper fights and eventually the pups were accepted in the cage! Nutmeg was going crazy, running everywhere and humping everybody, making sure she was top goo. Her problem was that she was a bit too rough. The little ones would instantly submit, but then Nutmeg would be rough in the grooming, to the point that the pups would then retaliate. There were a couple of fierce boxing matches between Nutmeg and big pup. I was there, ready to seperate if it became worse but I knew I had to leave them sort it out between them, and if I kept on interfering then nothing would be resolved. As it was, couple of times I had to blow on them to stop the boxing match. Cinammon was more gentle with the pups, no problems there.

So, little pup would instantly submit and she would automatically flip onto her back. However big pup was not happy to be dominated by either Cinammon or Nutmeg. In the end, Nutmeg is still top goo. What amazed me, though, was that in the afternoon, whilst all was quiet I heard some squeeking, and I thought oh no, Nutmeg, enough with the dominance issue! So I look over and I see big pup on top of Cinammon and being dominant over her, and my lord was Cinammon's face a sight! Never seen a more grumpier face than hers. The funniest bit was that big pup was too small to properly mount Cinammon so she was constantly hopping up and down, trying to get on top of Cinammon. I couldn't stop laughing!

The final issue was that despite all was well and there was no fighting, at some point Cinammon and Nutmeg were asleep on the top shelf, and the pups on the bottom shelf. So I was worried that they may not fully gell together as a colony. However in the evening I looked over and saw this.... the pictures below speak words ;D





We have a happy ending ;D

Those goo pile pictures brought tears to my eyes - the pups look so happy with their new 'mummies'. I'm so glad it's all going well

I've been away from my blog for quite a while and I thought I would write a quick update on how my googles are doing and my progress in their diet and cage building - which is not much progress must admit right now! Work and home life have been keeping me busy.

So, as quite a few of you know by now we have a new addition to our family, a lovely French lop rabbit named Archie. He's an un-neutered male, although he'll be getting the snip as soon as he can. We only got him recently so I've been frantically reading up about rabbits, diet requirements, etc. At first I thought great, just what I along with the mammoth work on degu research, however, I'm noticing quite a few similarities in diet and feed so it should make my life easier

So this moves me onto my degus diet (and Archie's now). One of the main reasons I haven't progressed onto my more natural diet as yet is that I'm wanting to use up what I have already bought. So, the xtravital I 'diluted' it down with JR Farm feed, and the degus are loving it. I am also, still, giving them plenty of hay and dried plants (shop bought) so they are getting plenty of variety in their diet.

After this, which I anticipate will last them maybe another month, I am going to develop my own plant and seed mixes as others have done. I want to make sure I get all the required nutrients so there will be lots of reading up about nutrient levels (especially the seeds) plus other beneficial properties of the different plants.

The bonus about all this is that several of the plants the degus eat the rabbit can also eat, dandelions for example. I'm putting together a list of all the different types of food all my animals can eat (degus, rabbit and hamsters), i.e. plants, veggies, fruit, seeds, etc. Then I'm going to put a symbol next to each one representing what each animal can have. That way I'll be able to food combine and not spend as much. Hopefully!

This list will also work for the hamsters as one thing about Roborovskis that most people miss-understand is that out of all hamster breeds they are the most 'vegetarian' of the lot. So they can have some plant food like dandelion roots. However their diet is mostly seed-based, so I will be able to combine the degu's seed mix with the hamsters.

And finally, being a scientist, I've started building up a reference collection of various papers about degus, which I will make available to all. Maybe this can go with NightwishRaven's website?

Lastly, a quick update on my two new girls, Willow and Poppy. They have integrated very well with my two older girls, and Willow is happy bossing Cinnamon about, much to her chagrin! Poppy is definitely happier not trying to be top goo, and will instantly flop onto her back for grooming. They are both getting bigger, although Poppy had me worried for a while. She is still the smaller of the two, and not growing as fast, and she is such a delicate eater. She will chew one mouthful in the time it takes willow to eat an entire food item! Plus she would site on a ledge all fluffed up for hours whilst the others ran amok around her. At first I thought maybe her teeth were causing trouble, but I've checked and observed her and it doesn't look like it. It just looks like she's a slower developer than her sister. She's also come out of her shell quite a bit and she's the first to greet me now, very lively, and has joined with the others in running riot!