New to Degus... and new owner :-)

[malteser60]

I've finally gotten my two degus and i'm so excited about them that I want to tell everybody about them!

I fell in love with my two cuties when I went into P@H to buy some soft claws for my mum's cat. As usual I went to look round the animals, thinking about getting hamsters again, when I came across my two degus. In all honesty I had never even heard of degus before. This was last Friday. Well, I couldn't get them out of my head, it was love at first site.

The P&H wasn't even the one close to where I live, it was about 90 miles away (was down there doing a bat survey). Anyhow, after one day of thinking about it I had to get them. They were so cute. When I saw them at P&H they just came running up to me. If I moved they followed me.

So, four days later I was back down in Bristol and picked them up. I must say it's the best thing I've ever done. They are amazing, and cute, and wonderful pets. I thought I would have trouble with getting them to trust me. The very evening I was giving them food and they came right up to me, crawled onto my hands, and that's it. They were out of the cage and running around.

So, introducing to you are Cinnamon and Nutmeg, two lovely sisters, about 4 months old - although I think they might be older as they're doing the dominance thing. Cinnamon is the dominant sister, she's quite flighty, runs round lots, is more tentative at coming onto my hand, twitchy. She doesn't like being scratched whilst eating. Nutmeg, on the other hand, loves being stroked and sitting on your hand. She's got congenital cataracts, however I don't think she's completely blind. She zooms round the cage easily, although she does miss the ledges at times. And she's getting quite fiesty.

Anyhow, short of writing a novel about them, which I easily could now, I must admit Degus are amazing little things ;D

[NightwishRaven999]

Haha ! So glad for you They sound wonderful !
Btw, I love those names...two of my own degus are called Nutmeg and Cinnamon ;D

We have good taste
Looking forward to seeing more of your little goos.

[smux]

Dominance happens at any age, although I think less so if they're related. You wouldn't think my 4 were related, with the amount of dry humping I get to see....perfectly natural.

Did P@H explain about the congenital cataracts before you bought them (and I am not happy that they're buying degus from breeders that don't watch out for this sort of thing)? You need to be *extra* careful with sugar now because cataracts are the first warning sign of diabetes and if they already have them there's nothing for you to spot at that point. My 4 have them too, it doesn't affect their eyesight too much as they rely on scent and such more than their eyes.

If there's anything you're worried about, chuck a question here and we'll help if we can

[malteser60]

Did P@H explain about the congenital cataracts before you bought them

P@H did explain about the cataracts. In fact they were in their adoption centre, and I didn't buy them but gave a donation to the charity (can't quite remember what it's called, pets care or something like that). And really that's why I wanted to adopt them, I thought I could give a good home and look after them properly. I made sure I read up about degus properly, looking at both this website and degutopia. However I will have lots of questions!

At the moment Cinnamon is the more dominant one, which makes sense. However Nutmeg (the one with cataracts) is getting quite fiesty. She's got some courage, that's for sure. She's not timid at all in exploring the room and coming out of the cage. And I also so her trying to be dominant over Cinnamon, however Cinnamon soon told her off. They did have a serious squabble today, was a bit worried. Not the ball of spitting fur that people have said but seemed quite serious. So, when do you know when play fighting becomes more serious.

Oh, they do play fight quite a bit, they do the whole boxing thing which i find very cute!

[smux]

The chittering sound you hear when they playfight is a signal to each other and to you that they're having fun and not to worry, but if one of them squeals or squeaks (you'll know, it'll be a different sound to the normal) then either it's dominance and the one being dominated doesn't like it or the dominator is being too rough...however, if you hear a lot of squeaking from both of them or you hear nothing but a lot of scuffling in the cage, then they're fighting properly.

I should point out that two of mine got into a fairly bad fight recently but neither me or the flatmate heard or saw anything until I noticed blood on one of their paws...closer inspection showed quite a few cuts around the neck and upper body and (something I never mentioned then but noticed since) one of them (Loki, the one who tried to fly recently) has a nick in his ear. In a way it's good as I have something to identify him by, but at the same time you might not even know they've been fighting, just be vigilant :-)

[malteser60]

Well, I'm glad to say that the serious fighting hasn't really happened again, minor squabbles over food as usual.

Even though their seriuos squabble was a bit scary at the time it was also quite comical. Following a tip from another degu owner on the internet (can't remember if it was from deguworld or degutopia) I had filled up an egg box with their salad treat, closed it and left it to them. This resulted in Cinnamon sitting on top of the egg box preventing Nutmeg from opening it. Of course, Nutmeg wasn't too pleased by this turn of events, so had a go at Cinnamon. Cinnamon however, being the dominant one, is very protective over her food (she considers all the food in the cage pretty much her food), was not happy with being bullied by Nutmeg... thus ensued the fight. If I understood Degu I probably would have heard a whole load of swear words!

[deguconvert]

LOL Yes, you likely would have!! Bloogoo language. Nasty, nasty words!! LOL!

Welcome to the forum, and congratulations on your degus. It's so great to hear that you are thrilled with them, and completely charmed by their natures. They are true little sweethearts. It sounds like you also have things pretty much in hand. Good going!

[malteser60]

Thank you for the welcome

I am completely charmed by the degus, and whilst it's all going better than I thought, I definitely will be posting lots more questions in the future!