Degu in Malaysia

[kelvinfaye]

Hi, all. I am Kelvin from Malaysia.

I have been with sugar gliders for 5 years now. And a few months back, i was introduced to degu by a friend.

I have been researching about the goos (so as how it was call in the forum), before i am getting mine.

Just yesterday i went to a petshop, and saw a group of 4. I asked the staffs to let me touch them (first time touching a degu). How excited am i from scale 1-10? 10 of course. ;D

The first one that i got to touch was a fullgrown male. His muscle! Lean meat, solid boy. It is not a fragile animal. He let me tickle him. How was that? I am so excited, but i am not into repulsive buying thought. The second was a female, much lighter. All she wants was to face-to-face with me. Seems like want to give me a kiss? I do not know if Malaysia carries any coloured degu/variation, but this one has patches of brown over her agouti fur. Next week i will be going back to check it out. If it is still at the petshop, i will snap some pictures.

Well, i am in the midst of buying now OR later. Huhu. But definitely i am getting them. Used to have 40++ Mongolian Gerbils and few Duprasis. But as you may know, they have a short lifespan. That is why i prefer Degu. Malaysia weather is not suiatable for chinchilla.

Being a mongolian gerbil and duprasi owner before, i am surprise that i do not encounter Degu in few years back. They will be my dear babies.

Cheers
Kelvin

[moletteuk]

Hi Kelvin, Welcome to the forum

I'm sure you will find your small animal experience useful, sugar gliders seem fascinating to me, as indeed are gerbils especially in nice size colonies in interesting habitats. Degus need lots of space and attention, but are very rewarding and fun, and it's great to find a small animal with a longer life span.

The solid muscly boy sounds good, I'd be a little bit cautious about the lighter girl with unusual fur - unusual coats are not common and sometimes are associated with health problems, but I'd be interested to see a pic! It's definitely a good sign that they were friendly. I'd recommend a same sex pair or trio of brothers or sisters to someone getting their first degus

[deguconvert]

Hello Kelvin!! Welcome to the forum and the very interesting world of degus!! From Malaysia?! How cool and wonderful! I am delighted to have a new member from your beautiful corner of the world!! There is a lot to read on the forum, so browse through and ask all and any questions you have. Most people find that there is an unexpectedly steep learning curve when it comes to degus, but they are well worth the effort put into them!

I look forward to getting to know you in the days ahead!! It will also be interesting to learn how degus react to living in a climate that is so tropical and humid. Could be a learning curve for all of us.

Welcome to the forum!

[kelvinfaye]

Here are the pictures as promised.

The patches of brown hair area appears to be thinner than the rest of hair all over.


More. I flipped the coat over to have a good look. They are growing back healthily.


Front : The patched degu, Back : Agouti Degu?


Grooming session

[kelvinfaye]

The first DEGU i touched/handled in my life. He is muscular and has a short tail. Not as long as the other Agouti.


He is the fattest in that group. ;D


The other Agouti with normal tail, is an Alpha. He rules in this group.


The 3 boys.


Fat tummy

[deguconvert]

I am thinking that the degu with the fat tummy may well be a pregnant female!! It is interesting, looking at the photo of the degu that was drinking, that his belly doesn't seem to have the usual white/creamy coloured hair that most agouti degus have. You can see a patch of it under his chin, and maybe a bit in his legs, but the belly seems to be more a light sandy/reddish tone. Am I reading the photo right, or is there some reflected colour on the cage exterior that the camera has picked up?

As for the different fur colour, I don't know why that would be, but I don't really see it as a problem. It could be a genetic thing showing up, as sandy coloured degus do exist, but only through extreme inbreeding to isolate that particular recessive gene.

Have a look at this link deguworld.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=beginners&action=display&thread=13070 Here you can learn how to distinguish between male and female degus. Since both sexes have what is often interpretted as a penis, actually called the urethral cone, they are often mis-sexed as male when they are actually female.

[moletteuk]

I suspect that the patched degu has had some kind of hair loss, and the new hair looks a different colour as it grows in. Her face looks speckled with the redder colour too, which is a bit mysterious. Also the drinking boy appears to have a similar reddish look?? The drinking boy(?) also looks big & muscular at the front end??

[kelvinfaye]

Deguconvert : The fur colour of their bellies are all the same as their body colour. Is that weird. The Agouti is indeed all red coloured except the chin as u saw it.

[kelvinfaye]

Here's a video. Not so clear after upload to youtube.

youtu.be/Jb7OfYgwi1o

[deguconvert]

You know . . . I can't help but wonder if they have been cross-bred with something else. I know this would seem impossible, but there are animals that strongly resemble degus in an "asian" country . . . maybe more north though, like China, and I think they have a reddish coat colouring similar to the colour of the patches these degus display. Is there a possibility that a pairing between these two "cousins" may have taken place and these are the offspring? I don't recall of the animals I am vaguely remembering had different colour bellies, or if they are cream like degus bellies are, but if they weren't cream but reddish, that could provide some evidence of a cross . . . maybe? I'll have to see if I can track down these other animals. We actually discussed them on the forum some time ago . . . within the last say, 18 months, maybe even more recently than that. Whatever it is . . . their undercoat seems to be reddish rather than the usual cream, and that is DISTINCTLY different from any degus I've ever seen, heard of, or encountered. There is definitely something more than meets the eye going on here.

[ktwbaby]

Hey kelvin may I know what pet shop is that?! I've been looking for degus for ages !

[banditcuster]

May 9, 2012 4:46:02 GMT deguconvert said:

I'm not sure. doing a quick glance through the rest of the family, goo's don't have any relatives outside of Chile and Argentina... even most it looks like even the rest of the cavies evolved in South America...so having something that they could breed with outside of there is rare considering the morphology.

[deguconvert]

I agree with you, Bandicuster. Which makes the colouration of the degus that much more puzzling. They appear to be solid agouti EVERYWHERE except for a patch beneath the chin, which is not at all similar to "normal" agouti colouring for degus. So why/how would this happen?

[ntg]

I doubt degus are that common in Malaysia so it could be inbreeding leading to the belly colour being a common trait there?

[davx]

Hello Kelvin,

I have a question... its just curiosity. May it be possible that degus are bred in Malaysia as food animal for snake breeders? As far as I know is Malaysia a country that is popular for European reptile owners because of its diversity of reptiles and also Asian countries become more and more popular as supplier of farm reptiles. If this is the case this would be a good sign for you, as there is a demand for healthy degus and breeding them and you as pet owner profit from this situation as well.

[davx]

It is interesting, looking at the photo of the degu that was drinking, that his belly doesn't seem to have the usual white/creamy coloured hair that most agouti degus have.

It seems that there are two types of degus, one with whithe/creamy coloured belly and another type without this different colour. Also they differ in ear colour, one has nearly black ears, the other type has light grey coloured ears and in size/weight. The one type was imported to Europe in 1980s or earlier, the other in the 1990s.

[moletteuk]

Which is which, David? Do you mean the ones with the same coloured belly (usually called 'self') are the earlier importation? Can you tell us any more about this? Are they slightly different species, perhaps from different areas of Chile?

[davx]

I found this information in a German degu owner guide from Michael Mettler and Anna Sporon... I haven't it here the book. So I cannot say anything more in detail because I don't remember more precisely. But as I know, it is not clear where this types come from. Probably the one is a result of strong inbreeding or line breeding, nothing that has to be bad because the animals probably comes from laboratory breeds and with a good breeding management, but they were separated from other degu population for several decades and perhaps this was enough to form out such differences... but this all are only suggestions. Another suggestion was, that they are hybrids between Octodon degus and another degu species, but that seems hardly probable because it should have an impact on the reproduction of the offspring and on the behaviour of the offspring and nothing like this was reported. In contrast for dwarf hamster (Phodopus species) there are severe problems with hybrid species, because hybrid offspring shows a different and problematic behaviour and it is very difficult to breed them out again because they look very similar.