Post by smux on Oct 28, 2010 20:14:36 GMT
Got a bit of a weird few questions for me to be asking, but bear with me...fairly important ones :-P
On a female degu, the "lady area" (you know what I mean :-P) is just below the urethral cone, right? And the males don't have exactly the same external holes as the females do, right? I'd check with my boys, but it just doesn't feel right poking around down there :-)
Reason I ask is because despite the distance being fairly far apart on their lower regions (which led me to believe they were all males) it seems to me that one is a male and the other two are females. This was evidenced by me using the dominance hold on one of them and noticing some semen-like fluid around the area just below their urethral cone. I got a cotton bud and cleared off what I could, on the off-chance that either it wasn't semen and was instead some sort of discharge (that would have to be cleaned off, obviously) or it was and cleaning it off would lessen the chance of impregnation, and in doing so noticed that the area did indeed look "lady-like" (there was an opening just below the cone). On checking the other two, I came to the conclusion that there's just one male among them, although I am still not 100% sure of this as they were a bit flaky around that area...I will have to take a cotton bud to that area with a little bit of warm water to clean it off and have a proper look. If I decide that definitely only one is a boy then he will have to go in with his uncles or Dante (not sure if either would be safe for him, to tell you the truth...he might survive better with his uncles though) as I am already stretched for cages as it is with Dante and Elsevier separated permanently.
Anyway, for now I am going to leave this situation how it is now, and I am going to clean the 3 babes off down there and get a proper look then take pictures so other people could give me their opinions. One thing I have learned though is that the best way to check gender wouldn't be by look, it's probably better to look for their opening and if they don't have it they're male, this could be done from any age and would result in a 99% success rate for sexing (there's always going to be the odd one people miss :-P)...so, expect a post in the next few hours with pictures and any updates to this.
On a female degu, the "lady area" (you know what I mean :-P) is just below the urethral cone, right? And the males don't have exactly the same external holes as the females do, right? I'd check with my boys, but it just doesn't feel right poking around down there :-)
Reason I ask is because despite the distance being fairly far apart on their lower regions (which led me to believe they were all males) it seems to me that one is a male and the other two are females. This was evidenced by me using the dominance hold on one of them and noticing some semen-like fluid around the area just below their urethral cone. I got a cotton bud and cleared off what I could, on the off-chance that either it wasn't semen and was instead some sort of discharge (that would have to be cleaned off, obviously) or it was and cleaning it off would lessen the chance of impregnation, and in doing so noticed that the area did indeed look "lady-like" (there was an opening just below the cone). On checking the other two, I came to the conclusion that there's just one male among them, although I am still not 100% sure of this as they were a bit flaky around that area...I will have to take a cotton bud to that area with a little bit of warm water to clean it off and have a proper look. If I decide that definitely only one is a boy then he will have to go in with his uncles or Dante (not sure if either would be safe for him, to tell you the truth...he might survive better with his uncles though) as I am already stretched for cages as it is with Dante and Elsevier separated permanently.
Anyway, for now I am going to leave this situation how it is now, and I am going to clean the 3 babes off down there and get a proper look then take pictures so other people could give me their opinions. One thing I have learned though is that the best way to check gender wouldn't be by look, it's probably better to look for their opening and if they don't have it they're male, this could be done from any age and would result in a 99% success rate for sexing (there's always going to be the odd one people miss :-P)...so, expect a post in the next few hours with pictures and any updates to this.