help! i have baby goos!

[benonthenet]

hello

last week i brought i lone goo from p@h to introduce to our 2 girls i seperated the cage and swopped them over they few days to get used to each overs smell the only problem is that the new goo has given birth! and we only fond that out when one of the babies came out of the bed this morning! also to make things worse without knowing i swopped them last night so the mother was apart from her babies for 1 night but i swopped them back as soon as we noticed but i still feel really bad. i have never looked after baby goos so this is going to be a steep learning curve and i need to baby proff the cage as the babies can fit through the mesh! any other emergency baby advice i need to know? i think they are about 2 days old as there was a lot of chirping but i just dismissed it as nothing.

thanks

[Kins]

Crikey, you have been thrown in at the deep end! Don't feel bad, you weren't to know and as far as I have seen they are pretty tough little critters!

I don't have any experience with goo pups but there are plenty of people on here who do. I think baby proofing the cage is definitely the priority (you can just use cardboard to keep them contained in the cage if you stick it on the outside of the bars) but degu Mums are pretty independant, just make sure she's eating and drinking properly to keep her strength up!

Oh and if you can get any pics I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to see them!!

[benonthenet]

ok the panic is over now that i have had time to read up about baby care and i have now began making the cage baby proff by buying small mesh and putting it round the cage!

My next question is that during my reading it said that female goos can work together bring up the children and this makes it less stressful on the mother. now i only got the mother 1 week ago from P@H and i was currently introducing her with my other 2 goos and everything was going really well so well that i was planning on removing the cage seperater this weekend!

now would it be a good idea to remove the seperater now so that the other 2 can help or would this just put added stress as she is now looking after the babies? the other 2 did spend last night with the babies (by mistake i didnt know that he had given birth!) and they looked after them alright by the looks of it.

good or bad idea?

Thanks

[benonthenet]

just before someone comes out with a smart comment that its a mirical goo as i said "he had given birth" i know its a mistake i have a netbook and im getting used to th keybord still so lets have a laugh now and get it out of the way

[smux]

Wish I had been here a bit earlier, as I've had a similar situation (surprise birth).

Let the other girls in with the mother if they get on. You will be surprised at how friendly almost ALL degus are with babies, it's like an unwritten rule where they know they'll get torn to shreds if they hurt them...and in the case of my 3 babies they're right, and it's not the mother they'll have to worry about if they hurt one :-)
However, if you're not 100% sure, I would wait a few days and let the babies get their feet...She can manage looking after the babies (you haven't mentioned yet how many there were :-)) on her own without too much extra stress as most of the work is feeding them and only a lactating female (her) can do it. When I kept my girl on her own with the babies, I would take her out regularly and give her attention so she didn't go stir-crazy...I suggest you do the same, at least with treats anyway. Also make sure she has PLENTY of food, she needs a lot for milk production and the babies are going to need loads by the end of the first week probably.

Something you could try is letting the babies visit your degus and see how that goes, without the mother...something you've sorta already done by accident :-)

The way it sounds to me is that only you know the answer to your question for sure...YOU know how the introductions have been going, and if you think they can live together then go for it (without the babies at first)

[benonthenet]

thanks smux great advice as ever! I has removed the seperator to see how things would go as im not really doing anything today (just a report for uni!) so i thought doingit now i can closely monitor whats happening and so far everything is going well!

To start with the monther did a little of "look their my kids dont p**s me off" just after that they are very clam and the biggest of my orginal two "Deja" went right into "mother mode" and starting looking after them and then the mother "Vanilla" went for a little run around the cage nd seeing whats what at the moment Deja and Vanilla are in the bed with the pubs looking after them together. So all is well with my little goo family!

I also contacted P@H to tell them the news so that they can inform however got the male its a little boy and not a girl they said they would and even offered me a £20 gift voucher towards bringing up the pubs which i thought was very nice indeed!

I will be putting up a post in the adpotion board when I know more about the pubs as i will be looking to rehome them all s the cage is just to small to keep any and we have no space for another cage otherwise i would keep all of them as they are just so dam cute it ant be legal!

Thanks

[smux]

They definitely are too d**n cute for their own good, as I've found out with these 3 that were born almost 2 weeks ago (post elsewhere, I won't go into details here :-)). Seriously consider keeping them, even if it means just keeping the girls and passing the boys on to someone else (seeing as you can't keep both :-)), as these babies sound like they're currently the glue that's holding the friendly atmosphere together with your girls and the new "intruder". This shouldn't change if you DO decide to give them all up for adoption, but I'm sure they'd all welcome keeping the girls they helped bring up :-P
Any possibility that your cage is large enough to house them? Perhaps you should give us more information about the cage dimensions and one of us will look it up on degutopia (if you haven't already). I'll be keeping all 3 of mine, and I have to get a new cage now as I'll be splitting male and female up...before this, Theresa was sharing with her brothers as she was the dominant one and didn't get humped...I know now, of course, that this was because she was pregnant. I should point out that she became pregnant before I knew she was female, or I would have kept her apart permanently had I thought there was any chance of it happening :-)
Now she's had the babies, the boys are going to go in with her 3 brothers and the girls will go with her into a new cage that I have yet to get (I have one I'll use temporarily though, I always have a spare cage in the house :-)) although I might just build one for her (maybe that's an option for you? You could get the required materials for free or very cheap in secondhand shops, with only a little bit needed new)

You have about 6 weeks before you have to make a decision anyway, they'll be nursing with mum for that time. Do your best not to handle any of the babies for the first few days (if you have to, you have to) but the older they get the safer it is. Poke your finger through the cage and let the babies sniff and nibble you so they get used to you, and eventually they'll be very friendly with you. In my case, Theresa (the mum) knows and trusts me very well, so she's fine with me handling them and everything, you'll have to play it by ear in your case as the mum might get protective.

There have been cases where other (non-mother) degus have killed the babies in the past, but this sort of thing is very rare...as both the non-mothers are yours, you'd know their temperament better than us, and if they're normally friendly and calm they'll probably be fine. Other than this type of incident, there is no known history of any mother degu killing their babies for any reason, so there should be nothing for you to worry about in that regard...and in animals who DO sometimes kill their offspring (hamsters, for instance), it's usually due to handling (owner handling them too early) or stress from any number of factors (broken water bottle, no food, sleep deprivation, the list is endless) rather than malicious intent, so just make sure all is well always and you'll be fine.

Oh, and before I handled the babies at any time, I would wash my hands first for the first week or so...better to be safe than sorry, and better to not assault their senses with new scents they don't know :-)

You're in for a fun 6 weeks, I can tell you this from experience over the past 2 alone. After the first week or so, you should be able to remove the mesh that stops them from escaping, they'll be too big to escape. From day one, put a little bit of toilet tissue (split into squares would be good, but doesn't have to be) into the cage somewhere, one of the girls will come over and collect it for the house as they do like clean bedding (and obviously remove some of the old stuff every so often).

[benonthenet]

thanks smux thats very helpful. As for the cage we are pushing it with 3 goos really we have a john hopewell cage (fancy i know) this one www.johnhopewell.co.uk/default.asp?template=productdetail.page.xml&productId=294.

Getting a new cage/exstending the cage isnt really an option either at the moment as im about to go back the uni and my girlfrend will be looking after the goos at her parents house. If we where living in our own house then yer I would have kept all of them and made the cage bigger and brought another cage if i needed however we wont be able to do anything like that for at least another 9 months and i dont think it would be fair.

However, if something like 3 turn out to be boys and 1 is a girl then we will prob look into rehomeing the boys all together and keeping the girls but overwise i would look into rehomeing them all and i can tell you whe i do rehome them i might have to book myself in for a little cry!

[smux]

Degutopia says it's enough for 2 adult degus although it's too small even then really (http://www.degutopia.co.uk/deguhouse.htm and dimensions 60x45.72x89.535 give 245,612 cubic cm, and 310,000 is a suggested minimum) so you're probably right. If they get on well though, they'll not mind so much, and even less so if they get free time out sometimes.

Rather than rehoming them, you could ask Chloe @ degutopia to take them in for a few months (she charges £1 per week per degu, I think, I can't remember offhand) and you can get them back when you're ready. You could alternatively hope to get a free cage from someone who doesn't need it, that's how I got my spare cage :-)

I'm assuming the uni doesn't allow pets, so haven't suggested you take the mum and her babies with you.

Another option could be to ask a friend to look after your two and have your girlfriend looking after the mum and her babies (if you got a second cage, as I mentione before :-))

I'd offer to look after the mum/babies if I didn't have a mum/babies of my own and a total of 12 degus including them :-)