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Post by monkeyblaster69 on Jan 15, 2013 6:37:18 GMT
Okay I am very new at this and was wondering if anyone could give me some advice. A little background story... We got our degus, Sheila and Wilbur, back in June 2012. She got pregnant around July and went into labor prematurely. She sadly lost all those babies even with me doing all I could. She got pregnant again and had her babies exactly one week ago. I am very happy to say that all 5 babies are doing wonderful. I had seperated Wilbur once I saw Sheila had the first baby. I have had him separated since. You can tell he is affected by being alone and I feel so bad. I am just not sure how long to keep him separate. Can anyone give me advice? Is it okay to introduce him back to mom and the babies? Thank you very much  |
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Post by Maravilla on Jan 15, 2013 8:15:27 GMT
Hi, and welcome to the forum!! Is it okay to introduce him back to mom and the babies? Are you planning to have a new litter soon? You had 2 litters until know, in 6 months. If you do not plan to have more, you should have him neutered and wait around 6 weeks before you introduce him back to mom... or you open another group with the baby boys (if there are, you can check now) once they are around 7-8 weeks old. Even if you want more litters, it would be better to give mom some time to recover before having the next one. Having litter after litter is not healthy. I know that there are people who say that it is safe to put mom and dad together shortly after labour. But how do you know when to separate them again? |
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Post by moletteuk on Jan 15, 2013 13:01:58 GMT
Hi Monkeyblaster, welcome to the forum What are your plans for the babies and Wilbur? Maravilla has mentioned two good options for you: either starting a new group of dad and one or more boys, or neutering dad and keeping him with mum and girl babies and rehoming or rehousing boy babies. The degu reproductive cycle is approximately 21 days, so dad could go back in for 10 days or so (as you are currently at day 7), then take him out for a week or so and then put him back for maybe a couple of weeks, BUT it is very difficult to be accurate enough after one or two cycles, and taking dad in and out is distressing for them, so I would really suggest making a more long term plan. |
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Post by Maravilla on Jan 15, 2013 14:43:59 GMT
The degu reproductive cycle is approximately 21 days But this is the problem: you never know if it is 21 days, 18 or 30 days. My girls (living with neutered boys) have completely different cycles. And this is the next problem. When you have mom and some of the baby girls together with dad this way of separating them is impossible as you never know when to take him out. And as moletteuk already pointed out this means a lot of stress for all of them. |
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Post by moletteuk on Jan 15, 2013 17:56:33 GMT
This is interesting, how much do your girls' cycles vary, Maravilla?
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Post by monkeyblaster69 on Jan 16, 2013 1:41:30 GMT
It doesn't seem like there is one right answer, if I can say so. I was planning on separating the boys and the girls once they did not need mom for food anymore. Which if what I have been reading is right around week 6, right? I just do not think it would be fair to keep dad by himself for another 5 weeks. moletteuk, would it be a good thing to separate a pup from mom when they are still so young? Oh and honestly I'm not sure if I can tell which ones are girls and which ones are boys right now. Thank you everyone for all your help. |
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Post by deguconvert on Jan 16, 2013 5:16:41 GMT
Having been through a number of pregnancies and deliveries now, I can tell you that it is just as easy to determine gender on pups even as early as a day old, as it is on much older degus. But have a look at this link deguworld.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=beginners&action=display&thread=13070 and it should give you a clear understanding of what you are looking for/at. Now . . . since you only have the one female, it should be fairly easy to determine that her next cycle will be approx 21 days from the day of the pups birth. So, if you can put Dad back in with her until she is say at day 19/20, and keep him out until she is at day 3/4 than you should have had him out during the menstruation and it should be safe to put him back in. But you will have to track her days very carefully to be sure you have him out for 3-5 days when she is bleeding, with the hopes that you will successfully avoid another pregnancy. You do not want to take the pups away from Mom before their fifth week of age it you can at all avoid it. Keeping them with Mom up to age six weeks is best, and then promptly separate them. Maravilla . . . may I ask for clarification? Are you saying that not all females have a 21 day cycle? Or that since you have a group of females, it is difficult to determine WHEN any particular female is in estrus? |
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Post by Maravilla on Jan 16, 2013 9:06:52 GMT
I was planning on separating the boys and the girls once they did not need mom for food anymore. Which if what I have been reading is right around week 6, right? That is right. They should not be separated before being at least 6 weeks old, for social reasons 7-8 weeks would be better. Well, what is fair? Would it be fair to have mom being pregnant 3-4 times per year? I suppose you are American (from your way of spelling) and I suppose that there is still demand for degus which is good for you. Here things are completely different. Therefore I am so completely against having litters at home. In the last couple of years there have been huge cases of animal hoarding in degus where everything started with one couple or some females with one male and where people lost control. The result: 60, 100 or even 200 degus who needed a new home urgently and almost immediately. But coming back to "fair". It is not fair to take dad out every couple of days either as this means stress for all. Degus should not be kept alone, that is right, but there are always situations where this is necessary. E.g. after having males neutered, when introducing degus, after massive fights, when looking for a new degu for the lone one. Of course these situations are not nice. But you cannot avoid them. At the moment I have 3 lone degus for one of those reasons, but I have them all separated with a mesh from other degus so they have at least some kind of contact and I try to keep this period of time as short as possible. You mean for checking their sexes? This would take only some few moments. Degu pups are active from a very early age on so there is no problem in taking them out for those few seconds it takes to check them. I am not sure as I do not take note. But it seems there are months where they do not have a cycle at all. Actually both. With more girls in a group it is almost impossible not to lose the overview. And yes, I would say that not all of my girls have a 21 days cycle. As mentioned earlier I would say that there are months where - at least some - do not have a cycle at all. Two girls seem to have an estrus only a couple of times per year and at least one girl seem to have it more often but does not accept the male mounting her. But okay, most of my girls are not very young but older than 3 years. I just checked the degu books I own. In the best veterinarian book here available (one of the 2 authors owns a veterinary practice where she ONLY treats small rodents and rabbits) the cycle is said to be 18-25 days. And there it is also said that degus should not be separated from mom before week 8. In another book, the best degu text book available here I would say, it is cited that degus often need stimuli for having an estrus, so often there is a male needed. This is the first time I read that degus are bleeding!! I just checked quickly some information on the net but did not find any hint about it. Do you have some further information on it? |
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Post by moletteuk on Jan 16, 2013 13:44:40 GMT
How did you get on with the sexing guide, Monkeyblaster? The sooner you can sex them, the sooner you can firm up your plans. You could post some photos if you are having trouble deciding and we can then help you.
You've probably worked out now I meant you can put the boy babies with Wilber at 6 weeks for your long term arrangement. Six weeks should be fine in your case because they will be weaned by then and dad will help with developing their social skills.
Unfortunately there is no way round Wilbur being on his own for a while. As I said before, you can safely put dad back in now until day 17 or so, he will help care for the pups, so it is beneficial for everyone to do this. After that it is up to you whether you keep him on his own until the pups are 6 weeks, or risk putting him back in at around day 27 or so for another 10 days ish. I've worked those numbers out fairly conservatively, but obviously there are no gaurantees.
If you are confident with the sexing you could consider having the boy pups make short visits with dad before they move in with him.
You'll have to use some judgement about what causes the least distress to Wilbur. Male degus in the wild help with bringing up the babies, and obviously are naturally social, this is why they get distressed at being seperated from their new family.
On the oestrus topic generally, my female degus have never shown any apparent signs of coming into oestrus, they do not share a house with any males. We have had people on the forum report obvious cycles in girls kept without males though. Perhaps it varies. It seems highly likely that the 21 day cycle would be an average with at least some variation between individuals, this happens in other species anyway.
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Post by banditcuster on Jan 16, 2013 14:27:21 GMT
maybe it is just Michigan but Degus are not in high demand over here in the US. I know 1 pet store that happily carries degus, the rest will not sell them and if they get in some they are all separated because they do not wish them breeding and do not have the knowledge to determine sex 100%.
I would like to also point out that no animal has a very set menstrual cycle, Humans can easily justify this. number of days can vary.
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Post by deguconvert on Jan 17, 2013 5:57:17 GMT
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Post by Maravilla on Jan 18, 2013 13:21:02 GMT
I asked a friend of mine who has been keeping degus for a couple of years and who is studying veterinary medicine about this bleeding thing.
Her answer: degus do not have a bleeding.
I know this blog as I also reported my observations in it. But things changed quite a lot in the last months.
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Post by deguconvert on Jan 18, 2013 14:53:04 GMT
Things changed quite a lot in the last months? With your degus? With your understanding and knowledge? Can you tell please us more, Maravilla?
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Post by Maravilla on Jan 18, 2013 16:29:51 GMT
Can you tell please us more, Maravilla? I have a couple of new degus now. When I wrote those posts, I had 8 degus (2 of the girls died in the last couple of months), now I have 13, in different groups. I have some more females and my first female degus are older now (around 5-6 years). Well, and I have had about 1,5 years more to observe their behaviour, so nowadays I would not write what I had written before. It is not wrong what I reported but was only something like a first draft. I think I said something about a more or less 21 days cycle. In my case I would modify this now. |
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