Degu arthritis

[coopz99]

Hi everyone

I have an 8 year old degu who I have become concerned about. She no longer uses the top of her cage and I have noticed that she no longer seems to know how to jump between shelves that or she can't. I didn't know if this was arthritis or if there might be some other cause. She seems very mobile when I let her run around the house and her behaviour is exactly the same as before. However as I said she no longer seems confident or capable of moving between shelves despite me redesigning the cage so that the gap between shelves is reduced. Does anyone have any advice or ideas about what this could be? I am happy to take her to a vet but they never seem to be as knowledgable as the people on here who actually have experience of looking after degus. 

Thanks 

Nicholas

[saddlers]

Does she have any signs of cataracts? I know they can be more cautious if their vision becomes impaired.

[Maravilla]

I have had an older, blind and handicapped degu. We built flat ramps for him so that he was not forced to jump. Now, I have a 7 year old lady, also blind, probably with arthritis. She can decide whether to use the ladder or flat ramps. She still runs around, uses running wheel and flying saucer. But it can be clearly seen that she has problems. In my opinion, an older degu that clearly shows signs of being handicapped shouldn't be forced to jump between shelves. You surely can put flat ramps to help her to move around.

But saddlers also mentions an important point. In the case of my old lady it is hard to detect cataracts but her eyes are really, really small.

[coopz99]

Hi, thanks for your replies. 

I checked her eyes to see if she had cataracts and they looked fine. I have noticed that her nails are long and that she is moulting more these days but I don't know if this will have an impact on her mobility.  I redesigned the cage to include ramps but the nature of the cage (tall and thin) has made it hard to redesign the cage without including small gaps between shelves. She can jump and often spends time on a shelf that is 3 inches above her and that she has to jump to. Using food to encourage her, she did climb the shelves all the way to the top and then she worked her way to the bottom about 6 times. However i did not notice that on some shelves she seemed to struggle to work out how to get down and got herself into quite unnatural positions (her back legs were very far forward) when she was trying to move between the shelves. I will buy some more shelves so I can redesign the cage further and make sure she is as happy as possible. 

Thanks for your help, any more advice would be welcome.

Thanks 

Nicholas

[saddlers]

The willow bridges from zoo plus are good because they can be shaped into position, we put them all over the place for our oldest goo, it just made small ramps rather than jumps. They are also chewable and cheap!!