Degu died at 6 weeks old.

[shanibandangle]

Hi all, I joined this site so I could ask about one of my 6 week old degus who passed away on Wednesday night.

My little sister got 2 female degus for her birthday last year and one of them unexpectedly gave birth to 3 boys about 6 weeks ago. One of the degu babies was noticeably smaller than the other 2 from birth but he seemed perfectly healthy. As he grew he wasn't as energetic as the other two and seemed very shy. He ate plenty though so we didn't notice anything wrong with him. He often liked to be alone and was slower than the others, putting up little resistance to being held. I also noticed that his eyes were sometimes half-shut. He just looked like a small ball of fluff and quickly became the 'favourite' of the babies due to his nice, peaceful attitude. I think I once saw him eating poo from the cage and didn't really know what to do about it. Despite these things, he was a normal degu who loved cuddling with his brothers, and his mother and aunt looked after all three of them very well. I was about to give the 3 babies away to my boyfriend who was going to adopt them. However my sister checked them on Wednesday night and they were fine, by the morning he was dead and had been buried in the nest, and she was naturally heartbroken.

We are finding it painful not understanding what happened to him and think that he might have been inbred as we don't know who his father is. I hope that someone on here finds some of these symptoms familiar and might be able to help us understand why this happened.

[winic1]

How long has your sister had these degus, and how old are they? More likely that they are NOT two girls, but a boy and a girl. Easy to make mistakes on gender, happens all the time. If she had had them more than 90 days before the babies arrived, then she has a male and female, not two females.

Also, make sure the two remaining babies are indeed boys, or your babies could be having babies very soon.

If the babies were born less than 90 days before your sister got them, meaning that the one was pregnant before she took them home, then inbreeding is a possibility, if the degu was together with her brothers.

Sounds like the little one was just never very strong or healthy.  At least he had a good, if short, life.  So sorry you lost him.

[jenowuk]

Apr 11, 2014 22:47:07 GMT shanibandangle said:

I think I once saw him eating poo from the cage and didn't really know what to do about it.

So sorry to hear about the little one, it's heartbreaking.

Don't worry about the eating poo, that's completely normal for degus. Degus are herbivores, which just means they receive their nutrition from plants, but plants are hard to digest. Different animals have different ways of coping with this (for example, cows have 4 stomachs!), but rodents practise "coprophagy" which means they chew their food once and receive some nutritional value, then excrete the rest as poop. They then eat some of the poop, which as it has been through the stomach once, is easier to digest and they get more nutrition from the second time! Rabbits, rats etc do the same thing too.

[shanibandangle]

The pet store told us that all of the degus they had delivered were all female. They were 8 weeks old when we got them (9th Dec) and she gave birth on 28th February so about 87 days after we got them. I've heard it's common for past owners to not separate the degus early enough, although the lady at the pet store said it was rare what happened to us.

I wonder if there was problems with the little one because the mother had them so young.

[klbishop]

I am really sorry for your loss.
We lost a goo last year and a very wise member of the forum told me ' sometimes bad things happen and there isn't a reason for it'. Goos mask their injuries, and illness until the very last minute to hide it for predators. There could be so many reasons and the size indicates he may have been the runt of the litter (I have one myself too, he is a sweeties but always comes up worst in a fight). So sorry hun xx

[moletteuk]

I'm sorry for your loss.

If he was small and a bit slower, he might very well have had some kind of genetic weakness, some sort of problem from birth that made his early demise inevitable. Something like an improperly formed heart might fit. It sounds like you made a fuss of him and I'm sure he enjoyed the time he had with you.

Pet shops mis-sex degus all the time, they don't properly check them when they arrive in the shop or when they sell them. Please do check all the sexes yourselves carefully, here's our guide to help you deguworld.proboards.com/thread/13070/degus?page=1