Post by char333 on Mar 29, 2009 13:12:00 GMT
hey
I'm hoping that someone can help as at the moment this is all very distressing for everyone in my household.
well basically i bought 3 male degus (dax, evra and seb) about a year and a half ago. dax 1 of the male's turned out to have cataracts a few months ago. this was fine he's perfectly happy and healthy he's just blind.
a few weeks ago we found 3 Babbie's in the cage, after watching them closely for a few hours we thought that evra was the dad and seb the mum. we thought this because we saw seb feeding the babies and evra was snuggling in the nest. so we removed dax the other male. this all happened on the Friday.
on the Wednesday i got a phone from my mum saying that she found a dead baby in the cage this morning, i went home later that day to find 2 dead in the cage and the same 3 alive, after examining the Babbie's i found that the 2 dead ones were deformed they both only had 3 legs, neither of them had been cleaned or tendered to in any way.
we thought this was very strange to begin with as it meant that seb had given birth to 3 perfectly happy healthy Babbie's on Friday to then give birth to 2 more on Wednesday that were deformed.
i stayed up with them for most of the night trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
at around 11pm on Wednesday i saw evra (the supposed dad) straining i later looked and there were 4 more Babbie's these were all very small and very pink, however they appeared to have all their limbs which was a good sign. we then released that it made more sense that evra had in fact given birth to the 2 earlier ones that had died due to being deformed.
this now meant that dax is the father to both litters and that seb and evra are infact both girls. there is now 7 Babbie's.
however the drama doesn't stop here......
after watching both seb and evra with the Babbie's it appears that seb is doing most of the work and is not only suckling her own brood but evras as well. evra doesn't seem intrested in her babes at all shes just running round the cage normally. occasionally she will sit in the nest with them but thats about it and so far I've only seen her suckle once.
on Thursday we found another dead baby this one was small like the other's but appeared to have all its limbs. so we are not sure why it died we thought it may just have been the runt of the litter.
on the Friday i got another disturbing phone call from my mum stating that she witnessed seb throwing one of the babies in the air with her mouth and biting it this appeared to be 1 of evra's Babbie's.
this is dreadful and to be honest i cried when i heard this as i couldn't believe what i was hearing. when we had both calmed down a little we figured that maybe seb who was still doing all the mothering couldn't handle having 6 Babbie's to look after so she had killed the weakest one so that she could better look after the others.
the latest report it is seb is still doing the mothering of her 3 who are now starting to leave the nest and run around the cage much to sebs disapproval as she scoops them back up into the nest after a few minutes. evras 2 Babbie's are still quite small and are now starting to be suckled a little by evra herself but seb is still doing most of the mothering.
dax is still on his own as we are unsure if its safe to return him in with the 2 mums as we don't want anymore Babbie's.
our last theory was that dax had impregnated seb, who then gave birth to 3 Babbie's all perfectly natural at full term. we then think that dax had impregnated evra a few weeks/days later and she had given birth early probably stimulated by seb giving birth. this we feel makes sense as evra's Babbie's were deformed (well 2 of them were), they are also smaller and appear weaker. it would also explain why she is reluctant to care for them as she may not be ready within herself.
this is really 1 big mess that i honestly didn't expect to happen as i thought i had bought 3 males.
we are now thinking of getting dax castrated before we reunite him with the females, however we are unsure if this procedure would be more risky for him considering that he has cataracts.
p.s if anyone has had any similar situations or knows if our theories hold any truth, please let us know.
also if anyone knows anymore about castrating males with cataracts that would be helpful too.
p.s i should probably mention that I'm a university student and that is why my poor mum has been ringing me with all this distressing news.
I'm hoping that someone can help as at the moment this is all very distressing for everyone in my household.
well basically i bought 3 male degus (dax, evra and seb) about a year and a half ago. dax 1 of the male's turned out to have cataracts a few months ago. this was fine he's perfectly happy and healthy he's just blind.
a few weeks ago we found 3 Babbie's in the cage, after watching them closely for a few hours we thought that evra was the dad and seb the mum. we thought this because we saw seb feeding the babies and evra was snuggling in the nest. so we removed dax the other male. this all happened on the Friday.
on the Wednesday i got a phone from my mum saying that she found a dead baby in the cage this morning, i went home later that day to find 2 dead in the cage and the same 3 alive, after examining the Babbie's i found that the 2 dead ones were deformed they both only had 3 legs, neither of them had been cleaned or tendered to in any way.
we thought this was very strange to begin with as it meant that seb had given birth to 3 perfectly happy healthy Babbie's on Friday to then give birth to 2 more on Wednesday that were deformed.
i stayed up with them for most of the night trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
at around 11pm on Wednesday i saw evra (the supposed dad) straining i later looked and there were 4 more Babbie's these were all very small and very pink, however they appeared to have all their limbs which was a good sign. we then released that it made more sense that evra had in fact given birth to the 2 earlier ones that had died due to being deformed.
this now meant that dax is the father to both litters and that seb and evra are infact both girls. there is now 7 Babbie's.
however the drama doesn't stop here......
after watching both seb and evra with the Babbie's it appears that seb is doing most of the work and is not only suckling her own brood but evras as well. evra doesn't seem intrested in her babes at all shes just running round the cage normally. occasionally she will sit in the nest with them but thats about it and so far I've only seen her suckle once.
on Thursday we found another dead baby this one was small like the other's but appeared to have all its limbs. so we are not sure why it died we thought it may just have been the runt of the litter.
on the Friday i got another disturbing phone call from my mum stating that she witnessed seb throwing one of the babies in the air with her mouth and biting it this appeared to be 1 of evra's Babbie's.
this is dreadful and to be honest i cried when i heard this as i couldn't believe what i was hearing. when we had both calmed down a little we figured that maybe seb who was still doing all the mothering couldn't handle having 6 Babbie's to look after so she had killed the weakest one so that she could better look after the others.
the latest report it is seb is still doing the mothering of her 3 who are now starting to leave the nest and run around the cage much to sebs disapproval as she scoops them back up into the nest after a few minutes. evras 2 Babbie's are still quite small and are now starting to be suckled a little by evra herself but seb is still doing most of the mothering.
dax is still on his own as we are unsure if its safe to return him in with the 2 mums as we don't want anymore Babbie's.
our last theory was that dax had impregnated seb, who then gave birth to 3 Babbie's all perfectly natural at full term. we then think that dax had impregnated evra a few weeks/days later and she had given birth early probably stimulated by seb giving birth. this we feel makes sense as evra's Babbie's were deformed (well 2 of them were), they are also smaller and appear weaker. it would also explain why she is reluctant to care for them as she may not be ready within herself.
this is really 1 big mess that i honestly didn't expect to happen as i thought i had bought 3 males.
we are now thinking of getting dax castrated before we reunite him with the females, however we are unsure if this procedure would be more risky for him considering that he has cataracts.
p.s if anyone has had any similar situations or knows if our theories hold any truth, please let us know.
also if anyone knows anymore about castrating males with cataracts that would be helpful too.
p.s i should probably mention that I'm a university student and that is why my poor mum has been ringing me with all this distressing news.
