How much calcium?

[teemu]

How much calcium do people here generally administer to their degus? I've noticed that Limppu and Suti both try to ravenously devour the drywall in my kitchen. And while it might just be them being destructive and honing their teeth, it came to mind that there is probably a lot of chalk in it, which may or may not factor into it.

I've overall seen some conflicting information about how much calcium should be in the diet as a whole, so I'd be intrested to know how much people here give to their degus.

[moletteuk]

From my research several years ago when several of us were looking into degu diets, I think it's fairly standard across mammals that the diet should contain 1 to 1.2 % calcium. And the diet as a whole for mammals should always have more calcium than phosphorus with the 2:1 ratio of calcium to phosphorus often mentioned as ideal.

This thread gives some calcium and phosphorus references.
deguworld.proboards.com/thread/17299/important-research-degu-dental-health

I haven't looked into this at all more recently, mainly since I don't have degus or other small mammal pets any more.

I think it's quite difficult to keep the calcium high enough in the diet, anything that isn't forage or pellets usually reduces the Ca to P ratio, often quite drastically, and who knows how accurate the mineral content figures are for commercial pellets.