On possibly being premature...

[shadowdancer60]

Sadly, we did lose the one baby with the face injury tonight. He seemed to be doing fine this afternoon, chasing around with the others, but my GF found him (we were able to sex him) under the rest.

My question now is, since baby degus are born fully furred, we had noticed that our pups are furred on their heads, but the rest of their bodies just have a light dark fuzz, which is just starting to brown a little toward the normal agouti coloration. Is it possible that this litter might be a little premature?

[laurieb]

From what You described, ours looked like that too. I have Lilly's and Milly's newborn pictures in the pics section. It was as though they were 2 different colors.
I am so sorry for the loss of little one:(.
Laurie

[shadowdancer60]

Thank you. I checked your pics, and that's exactly what ours look like...all stilt-legged and big heads. Odd, feeling little paws grabbing your fingers, then a larger, stronger one doing it! (Mom seeing what the little ones were playing with.)

Right now, we're just keeping our hands flat on the bedding, letting everyone explore us as they will. How soon would we be able to handle the wee ones without mom getting overly upset? So far, she'll run over our hands, then sit off in a corner watching. (All the time, one of the others is "WEEP!!"ing at the intrusion.