Just seen these little guys..

[suek]

Took all my strength to walk away, as our house is in complete disarray and I want to get our cage built and ready before getting the goos..

So they were at pets at home, but it was just the colourings that struck me. It looks like a couple are patched blue goos? Hard to see as they were sleeping the whole time!

There was no indication of genders on the cage so who knows what they had in there! The agouti and agouti patched ones came up to say hello to me though :-)

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[moletteuk]

Resist resist!

[saddlers]

Why do we do it to ourselves, I wandered into a P@H the other day and there were two girls in the adoption centre...took me all my strength to walk out..I really need to keep away!!

[suek]

I think I need to stop going in there, these ones were particularly hard to walk away from! Soon enough we will be ready for them and I'm sure then the perfect bunch will be waiting :-)

Currently though this is the state of their future home!

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[animalmadchloe]

I also saw some patched degus in p@h a good few months ago oh immediatly started acting like a spolt child and wanting them!

[deguconvert]

Oh the temptations of the pet store!! Our stores are not carrying degus anymore, but today as we were in need of degu and dog foods, we saw some totally adorable lions head bunnies. One was a beautiful silver, another had a round patch of brown on its back and agouti the rest of its body, and my fav had black under fur and on the face with light curly grey for the longer fur. SOOOOOO sweet!!!

Still managed to walk away successfully. WHEW

[toothbrush]

I try and never go in, even if I'm passing! I have one local pet shop which I call my "Big picture" shop because although they do sell animals, it's limited species-wise. But they're a single-shop-and-stall independent family business. If they close down, all their customers will just moce to PAH. So in the long run, it benefits more animals to give them the little extra bit of custom through buying cuttlefish bones, kibble and cat litter occasionally than to potentially contribute to them closing down. But otherwise I buy the vast majority of my animal things online instead, to avoid temptation and to avoid financial support.

[craig1406]

Feb 17, 2014 20:29:11 GMT animalmadchloe said:

I also saw some patched degus in p@h a good few months ago oh immediatly started acting like a spolt child and wanting them!

Silly question. But where does the markings come from? Are they some sort of cross?

[Karma]

Feb 19, 2014 2:48:06 GMT deguconvert said:

Oh the temptations of the pet store!! Our stores are not carrying degus anymore, but today as we were in need of degu and dog foods, we saw some totally adorable lions head bunnies. One was a beautiful silver, another had a round patch of brown on its back and agouti the rest of its body, and my fav had black under fur and on the face with light curly grey for the longer fur. SOOOOOO sweet!!!

Still managed to walk away successfully. WHEW

The reason there are no degus is there are no breeders left in southern Alberta ...... The last one quit about a year ago because of their life span and difficult keeping them happy breeding (not to mention the extremely low profit of them). I am in charge of all the southern Alberta pet stores and the only one that has had degus in the last 6 months is one Petland in lethbridge that keeps a breeding pair.

[animalmadchloe]

Feb 22, 2014 21:43:13 GMT craig1406 said:

Feb 17, 2014 20:29:11 GMT animalmadchloe said:

I also saw some patched degus in p@h a good few months ago oh immediatly started acting like a spolt child and wanting them!

Silly question. But where does the markings come from? Are they some sort of cross?

I think it's something to do with over breeding cross breeding degus I'm not entirely sure

[ntg]

Feb 23, 2014 11:49:10 GMT animalmadchloe said:

Feb 22, 2014 21:43:13 GMT craig1406 said:

Silly question. But where does the markings come from? Are they some sort of cross?

I think it's something to do with over breeding cross breeding degus I'm not entirely sure

No, no, they come from genetic mutations within the genes responsible for coat colour, same as all colour variants.

Basically, every so often (including in the wild) these mutations will occur, however, in the wild they tend to be detrimental to the degus as they usually make them easier to spot by predators, so the new mutation is unlikely to be passed on as they don't survive long enough to breed. The best, successful example of this is the peppered moth:

At one point, only a few centuries ago, they all looked like this in order to blend in with moss on trees:



With the introduction of industry, soot and smog around large cities meant that the trees in the surrounding area weren't camoflaging the moths as well, as the moss was being destroyed, so more were being eaten. A genetic mutation caused a black peppered moth variation which was a lot more successful in these areas:



So now you see peppered moths in the black variant within industrial areas as those are the ones which blend in more - and so are more likely to survive - with the original colouration becoming more common the further you go outside of these industrial areas as there is more moss present.

Now, with degus, and other domesticated animals, when you see these colour variations, they don't impact on survival from predation in a home environment. When people breed and an animal is born with a new colour they are seen as rare and more desirable, so those are then bred to try and get more of that colour. The breeder generally does this by breeding related pairs together in the hope they'll get more of this variation, without knowing anything about the mutation in terms of impact on health or inheritance, something unique means more money after all. Eventually, through selective breeding you learn if the mutation is dominant/co-dominant (like patched are thought to be and the wild-type agouti) or recessive (eg blue). Unfortunately, at this moment in time, we have no idea on the health implications with these new colours, there's no information on whether or not their average lifespan or health is the same as the agoutis, or whether or not it impacts on behaviour in a noticeable way.