Help! We have babies!!

[daveuk]

We had two degus, Browniw and Wolfie which we adopted off here last year.

Quite a few months ago we was in pets at home and we adopted a 'male' degu which was in their adoption center all by itself and we didnt think this was fair. They said 'he' was aggressive towards the other male degus which is why they had to rehome him.

We went through the procedure of introducing etc and they all got along fine.

Sadly about 3 weeks ago Wolfie passed away.

Anyway, we noticed that mile the adopted degu was getting fat, but just thought he was enjoying the food!

Just started to clean the cage out and we have noticed about at least 5 babies!

Im going to start reading through the topics on here to find out what to do next, but as you can imagine im slightly pee'd off with pets at home.

Arrgh.......

[daveuk]

Weve had a count and its definatly 5 babies.

We found p@h and to be fair, the chap we spoke to was very friendly and helpful. They have given us a thicketts cage, not a brand new one, but one they had out the back. Needs a clean but not in too bad condition.

We need to look into neturing now. Ideally the female, although he said not many vets would carry this out, so will be having a google in a minute. He said that p@h would pay half of the vets fee to help us out.

Were guessing she's already pregnant again, appears she had the babies over the last two days, so instead of seperating brownie and milo, were going to leave them together.

Our plan is to wait 6 weeks and then try to sex them. We will keep all the males pups together and place the female pups in the spare cage and look into rehoming.

In about 85 days when milo she starts getting large again we'll place her in the spare cage so she can have the babies and then there wont be any chance of her getting pregnant again and brownie will have male company in his cage.

Hope all that makes sense! Got so much buzzing around the brain and still a lot more to learn!

[yasmin]

(Had something similar happen except I adopted four females with one of them actually being a male and now have 16 degus.)

Though not planned, still Congratulations! It is wonderful to watch the babies grow; they are so cute and the parent/baby relationship is heartwarming.

As far as neutering is concerned, it is far less risky and, I imagine, cheaper to have the male neutered. I guess you want to spay the female because you want to keep all of the males and Milo? Might want to look into whether having one female with more than one male is okay or not because I think the males might fight over the female. Or were you planning to give away Milo as well? Hopefully you will have males in the litter. In my case, my degu Lilac had only 1 male in her litter of 5 (there were 6 pups but one passed away a few days after being born).

The plan to sex them at 6 weeks makes sense. Though you can sex them sooner, six weeks is the earliest you can separate them from their parents so might as well wait until sometime between 6 and 8 weeks. Then you have to separate males from females.

Though there is a chance Milo may be pregnant again, she might not be. If she is pregnant, hopefully you will still have at least one daughter from the previous litter around so that she can help look after mom and the second lot of babies. When my degu Peridot gave birth to her litter – a month after Lilac's litter – all of Lilac's five babies helped to take care of the newborns. It was very touching to watch.

Good luck and please keep us updated as to the new family's progress.

[daveuk]

Hi Yasmin,

Many thanks for your reply.

Weve made some enquiries and it would be £45 to get Milo neutured.

Heres a video from yesterday


Will update with some pics soon!

[deguconvert]

OOPS!! Left one behind, Momma! LOL!! Chased them all in . . . but one. Too cute!! They are so obedient . . . well . . . most of them.

Our Pumpkin had a second litter almost a week ago, and they are just as cute as the first litter. Already they are popcorning all over the place, and one little boy is completely convinced that he doesn't need to be in the nest with the rest of his sibs. He sneaks out and then sits behind Pumpkin's back while she is eating, and he chews on the bedding, and whatever else he takes a liking to. LOL! He is going to be a go-getter I think!

[potnoodle94]

awww so cute that is amazing but such a shame that it was all so unexpected and unplanned for, otherwise you could have enjoyed the pregnancy. Are you going to rehome all the babies? I would love a little boy

[mandymon]

Baby goos are just the cutest wee things
sorry it was so unexpected but glad that P@H are being quite helpful about it with the cage and vet fees.
Hope you enjoy watching them grow though

[yasmin]

Love the video. They are so, so cute!

[daveuk]

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update! All seem to be doing well. They spend a lot of time snuggled up together but they are also having a little venture around by themselves!

We sexed them yesterday and it appears we have 4 girls and 1 boy. We will be keeping the male, but unfortunatly when the time is right we will have to put the girls up for adoption.

Heres a few piccies!

[daveuk]

I run three forums yet dont know how to upload mutiple attachements on here! Any pointers please!

[Kins]

They are beautiful! All sounds like it is going great and the babies are progressing as you would expect. Excellent news!