Drinking & two white teeth

[nfs102]

My older brother looked after my degu's for a week.
Got them home and one is drinking alot more than usual on a daily basis and the cage has more urine patches than we have ever seen.

No change in her behaviour and she is still eating but we opened her mouth and saw that one top and one bottom tooth were white-ish which has now got me very worried!

My brother only gave them degu nuggets daily and on the last day he gave them a few alfalfa bales which were not totally eaten. He gave them no veg of any kind as we said this was a bad idea him doing it.

He also cannot recall any unusual behaviour from this one degu. He looked after 4 and all were treated the same.

[nfs102]

Thank you for replying.
She only has one of her siblings in with her and the bottle doesn't look to be leaking but will double check or replace with the spare.
I filled the bottle up at 8pm and by 8am the water bottle was down by an inch. Usually it takes them both 24 hours to drink a little under a cm.

I am worried about the teeth though. One bottom and one top are turning white. Her sisters are fine.

I thought they could only get diabetes if they had high sugar intake? Diet has remained the same.

[philbailey1806]

It sounds like diabetes to me too unfortunately. It can happen all by itself as degus are genetically prone to diabetes, so even if shes never had anything sugary her whole life she could still develop it naturally. white teeth in a degu I have read is usually either a vitamin c deficiency or liver damage, and since diabetes can lead to liver damage, all the symptoms seem to be pointing towards this I'm afraid.

Have you noticed anything else at all about her? maybe a slight clouding over of the eye? diabetes often also leads to cataracts aswell you see, extreme weight loss is also a sign.

My advice would be to keep a very close eye on her and if you get any more concerned, take her to the vet just to get her checked over.

[nfs102]

Eyes look no different. Identical to the other 3 degu's we have.
She is the biggest and quite podgy compared to her sister but not overweight. We have been on holiday for a week and she is the same size as when we left we reckon.

Taking her to the vet tomorrow morning to get her checked out but local vets are not too educated on degu's it seems.


Can they live with diabetes if their diet is closely monitored? If this is the early onset of it should we change anything. All she has is hay and degu nuggets.

[kovu07]

I hope the vet is able to tell you what's going on, and I don't think you need to change her diet hay and degu nuggets are fine, it just sounds like she has been unlucky if it is indeed diabetes.

[moletteuk]

There's a chance that a change in temperature or something else could make them drink more, mine sometimes drink a bit more for no apparent reason.

It's easy to test for diabetes - you just dip a test strip in a urine sample.

[november87]

We now need to try and get a urine sample from her for the vets for Tuesday....any suggestions??

We need to know its hers and not her sisters too!

[kovu07]

Hmm perhaps you could put her in a dish or empty sandbath and feed her hopefully she'll wee in that?

[november87]

We've tried the sandbath empty, she only does little pees. Yet in the cage she never seems to stop.

I feel we have a long task ahead of ourselves.

[kovu07]

I'm sure a little sample is better than no sample