Can anyone help? Degu poorly

[lilladylu]

Hi to all.

I am worried sick about our degu Andre. He is always so lively and bouncy and tonight I have found him lethargic, and floppy like a bean bag. He feels like he is filled with water? His size looks the same...he isn't himself and he isn't eating. I have no means of transport till tomorrow to get him to the vets and I have no idea what to do? What could it be??

They have never been 100% healthy degus due to their previous ownership. We adopted them and they always seem to have sniffles but Andre never seemed to suffer with that. Infact he is always the healthier Which is why it is such a shock to find him like this!! He was making bed and collecting the new bedding off me last night!!!! Their cage was cleaned just two days ago, they have plenty of new food (gerty guinea pig and supreme degu squares) and clean water. I haven't fed them anything different. They have got clean bedding. We lost their brother Denzil too an R.I. about 2 months ago which he had since we got them. I have been diligently making sure the other two are ok. So as you can imagine im pretty distraught!!

I willl get him to a vet as soon as I can...why does this have to happen when its night time?!?!?! ALWAYS

ANyways I will be glad of any advice on how to keep him comfy. Should I try and get him to drink?? Also if anyone has any idea what might be wrong with him??

Thank You

Lucy x

[deguconvert]

I don't know what to guess. When he is breathing, can you hear any rasping, or noises that might suggest that he is fighting to breathe? I wouldn't try forcing water on him, as when we are trying to squirt water into their mouths, it can easily go down their wind pipe rather than into their stomach. See if he might lick a grain or two of salt off a finger tip. That can help them start to drink and balance any electrolytes that are wacky. One thing . . . I would make sure that he is being kept warm enough.

[lilladylu]

He isn't fighting for breath...He is just lethargic and puffy. I have made sure he is in his bed and cuddled up with fluff round him. He is responsive when i tickle his back...but doesn't want food or water. He seems really uncomfortable. He is in a warm room with no drafts so there isn't any problem with not being warm enough. I haven't tried to syringe him some water.

I had a gerbil once who went very similar...all puffy and like he was full of water. This was like a year ago. And within an hour of him going like it...he had multiple strokes and died I have a feeling with Obi it was kidney failure. But unlike Obi, Andre Goo doesn't seem to be in pain...

I duno. I have made sure there is food and water on the bottom level of their cage, and some porridge oats to tempt him to eat. I guess it's just gona have to be a wait and see scenario.

Thanks for you reply.

[amie]

I'm not sure what's wrong, but just a couple of questions: You mentioned 'fluff' around him.... what kind of bedding do you use because as I've recently learned myself the fluffy hamster bedding isn't safe for them, and also do you dry all your veg etc before feeding them?

I'm so sorry by the way, it's not nice when they become sick I hope he's ok when you can get him to a vet

[amie]

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[lilladylu]

his veg is dried usually. But as they are rescue degus, we don't know what they were fed before...they tend to just leave the veg and not eat it at all. It just gets wasted. They don't have fluffy bedding for hamsters, its just carefresh bedding and they have hay too. I have 10 gerbils also who have the same bedding The Degu's have never really been like normal degu's, I have a feeling they were taken away from their mum too early. They are really small for degus. Because we don;t know their full history its hard to say...but they don't really eat anything variable. We have introduced other things into their diet and it all gets left in a corner.

[amie]

They sound the same as mine in the vegetable department. They just won't eat it. I will keep trying and they will probably win, as usual. I'm so sorry I can't be of further help. They were just a couple of things that came to mind. I'm really do hope he gets better I think your best option (as you know) is a vet as soon as you can get him there.

I wish you both the best.

[nickymills30]

hope your little guy is better very soon xx

[smux]

Don't worry too much about getting him to eat or drink, degus can go a long time without food or water. Keep up the interactions with him, he may just feel a little bit depressed for some reason, perhaps he remembers Denzil...is he acting anything like he was soon afterwards, or was he normal afterwards?

I have a feeling your vet trip will be a wasted journey, not that any trip to the vet is a waste on the offchance that there is something wrong :-)

[lilladylu]

hello to all,

This morning I was dreading going into the room where Andre was but as soon as I opened the door he was up at the door of the cage! I don't think I have ever been so relieved to see him up and about. He is sneezing a bit more than usual so I still think a trip to the vets will be of use as they have suffered from colds since we had them. Maybe they need a bit of a hand getting rid of it. Getting Antibiotics in them is not an easy task though.

What I am going to do is monitor how he is and take him if i think the sneezing gets worse.

Hi Smux, thank you for you post, I did not know about how long they can go without food and water so that was really useful information! Thanks. As for his reaction, nope it wasn't anything like how he acted when Denzil died. They just cried for days when Denzil died. He was always active though. This time he was like floppy and weak looking.

I was wondering whether it may have been something food like that he got his hands on that he shouldn't have, because we keep all the gerbil food in the same room as them. Does anyone know how they would react if they have too much sugar?? We are always so careful to not give them fatty treats tho ??

Anyways thanks to everyone for your posts. Degu's are such complicated creatures compared to gerbils! Me and my partner are experienced gerbil owners and we have owned over 20 gerbils, 2 shaws jirds and two fat tailed gerbils. We are gerbil mad!! However, when we decided we would like some degu's we wern't banking on finding these guys as rescues. I am so glad we were able to rescue them...and i love them to bits. They have had a second chance with the best care, a massive cage and the correct food. There's not much more you can do than that!!!! they have everything!

Thanks again for all your quick responses.

Lucy x

[Jaiye]

Glad to hear he is better today ^____^ Must have been such a relief!

[nuttz]

aww lucy, what a releif...glad he is feeling better!!!

[arumanii]

ahh so glad he's ok again!

Degus do just seem to live life to keep us on our toes!

[blossombrooks]

Glad he's feeling better! One of mine seems to do this every so often, looks at deaths door for no apparent reason and frightens the life out of me! I've learnt now it's just something she does but my theory is her cage mate daisy keeps her awake and disturbs her sleep so much she just gets worn out. Like you there's been no diet change and she is perfectly healthy before and after. They just like to make us sweat! Little b*ggers. X

[smux]

If they've always had sniffles, is it possible that either the room they're in (or the area within that room) is too cold for them? Put a thermometer on top of their cage (with something under it if they'll be able to reach it) and see what temperature it reads a few hours later. Check on the temperature at different times of day (including at night after lights out, go in there with a torch an hour or so after the lights are out, rooms get warmed up by light bulbs, so an accurate lowest temperature would require the light to be off :-)) and let us know what the lowest and highest temperature is in there.

It could also be a reaction to their bedding...leave out the hay next time when you change the cage, just put some eating hay in wherever you put it, but have just carefresh as the bedding/substrate (no need to use more than usual to make up for it) and see if they get any better. You could also do the same with the hay and no carefresh, but I don't think there has been any incidents of reaction to carefresh except for the owner's "HOW BLOODY MUCH?!?!?" when looking for places to get it from :-P
If you use any other substrates (wood shavings, straw, etc) they would also need to be removed in turn to see if the absence of any of them makes any difference. It definitely isn't normal for them to be perpetually sniffly, and when one is like it you can chalk it up to a cold or a one-off allergic reaction, but when all of them are like that it's generally a environmental thing or possibly a reaction they're all getting to something (which is really environmental, but I'm being specific :-))

As for how they'd be on sugar, lethargic and limp is definitely not the answer. Degus don't process sugar (so it doesn't get into the body and break down like in humans and most animals) so there's no "sugar rush" of energy to the brain and body like with humans, but I don't think there would be any reaction to sugar if they ate it. Fatty foods, on the other hand, that promotes the "sugar rush" I mentioned above, it gives them a boost of energy so it can be a bad thing to give before bed...they tend to get a bit more active after sunflower seeds :-)