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Post by dumbblondie on May 12, 2011 23:37:08 GMT
ok so i brought 3 "male" degus last year then this year added 4 more males the other day i came down to find 8 babies the mum is from the older 1's, i was told they were 12 weeks old when i got them a year ago so what i want to know is why have they only bred now? i think the older male is the dad as hes done a lot of the cleaning and looking after the babies with mum and also when can the babies be handled by me and when do they need separating? and is there anything else i will need to know
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Post by Cherpi on May 12, 2011 23:55:51 GMT
Separate mum and babies from the others ASAP, before you have more babies.
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Post by deguconvert on May 13, 2011 0:49:01 GMT
Surprise!!! That is quite the population increase!! Please do re-sex your degus so that you know what you have . . . taking pictures and posting them on here for our opinions totally works too. I want to say congratulations, because the pups are SO adorable, I just hope that despite the surprise of it all, you feel excited as well. You can start handling them in about three days time. Mum won't be bothered by that. You will also want to keep and eye on them and if a pup wanders out of the nest for too many minutes, put him back in as they are unable to regulate their own temperatures until they are near 4 weeks old. They are also EXPERT escapees, especially since they can basically walk right through the bars as if they were open doors. You will want to cut up strips of cardboard that you can attach to the outside of your bars everywhere you have a level surface the pups will be walking on. Also, ALWAYS count your pups whenever you are going to hoover, just to be sure none have escaped and that you are running the risk of sucking one up while working.
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Post by sazjc123 on May 13, 2011 12:22:09 GMT
ALWAYS count your pups whenever you are going to hoover, just to be sure none have escaped and that you are running the risk of sucking one up while working.[/quote]
Is this from personal experience Deguconvert ;D
Wow, thats alot of babies. Hope they are all well
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Post by deguconvert on May 13, 2011 15:18:18 GMT
LOL! No it isn't, but one member from my early months on here came very close to doing it. She was within cms of sucking one up when she realized it was a moving furball and not an inanimate clump of dog fluff. She then realized it was a pup that had crawled out of the cage and fallen to the floor (landing uninjured) and scooped him up before any of her cats or dogs came upon it. (or the hoover for that matter) She posted about it, and recommended that all pups be counted to avoid such close calls as hers was. I was so impacted by that, that every time pups have arrived, I advize that this needs to be a practice. I'm just horrified by the thought of a little pup be sucked up and torn by the violence of the experience.
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Post by dumbblondie on May 13, 2011 22:25:41 GMT
i keep finding the babies up the top then they are all down the bottom if they wonder away from the nest the others stand over them till they either wonder back or are brought back
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