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Post by cheekyfilly on Mar 20, 2013 8:54:55 GMT
Hello! Im due to be getting my first pair of girlies and was reading about feeding. I was planning on feeding Xtra Vital Degu food alongside the compulsory hay and then small amounts of vegetable matter or herbs once a week. Will this be sufficient?
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Post by Maravilla on Mar 20, 2013 9:17:00 GMT
Welcome to the forum!
Where are you from? Knowing this people could tell you where you can buy or order more suitable degu food. Herbs should be fed more than only once a week, they belong to a good and healthy degu diet. What is completely missing are seeds, especially oil seeds. But please do not buy any kind of cereals. These should not be fed.
Hay is not only food, it is also used for building nests, for digging, for just having fun. Therefore it should be in bigger amounts in the cage.
You have still some time to read and get informed about the needs of degus. It would be great if you used it at maximum.
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Post by ntg on Mar 20, 2013 10:00:37 GMT
Apart from diet, that Maravilla has given you some advice on, I would check out the cage-size recommendations to make sure you have a big enough space for them straight away (it'll cost you less in the long-run)! For a pair we recommend a cage that is 100cmx50cmx100cm with 3 full levels. There are very few commercially available cages this size (and the ones that are often require modification) but a lot of members make their own cages as well! If you need any help with anything, don't be afraid to ask. Degus are weird and do lots of strange things as a result  also, welcome to the forum! |
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Post by cheekyfilly on Mar 20, 2013 12:09:53 GMT
Hi thank you for your welcome! My cage is 102 x68x46.5 cm but they will only be in there while I am at work. I aim to have them out as long as possible in mornings and evenings :-D. I am from Northampton so we have lots of pet shops. Will the Xtra Vital degu be ok or do you guys recommend something different?
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Post by moletteuk on Mar 20, 2013 19:44:25 GMT
Lots of playtime out of the cage is great, but we would still recommend a bigger cage than that, see this thread for more info deguworld.proboards.com/thread/9396/forums-cage-size-recommendations and the second half of this thread for good cage ideas deguworld.proboards.com/thread/6918/show-cage?page=20Xtravital is a middle of the road degu food, there are worse, it would be a good idea to mix in a second food like a JR Farm mix. It's really difficult for us to recommend any commercial degu food as they are nearly all made from mostly cereal grains, which we are discovering aren't ideal for degus, but it's also not that simple to launch straight into making your own food. The main thing is to add to their diet as much plant material as you can, herbs, leaves, weeds, flowers, tree leaves, roots, bark and so on. You can buy mixes or collect your own. There is lots of information in the sticky threads on this. We have a general feeding guide too deguworld.proboards.com/thread/16425/degu-feeding-guide |
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also, welcome to the forum!
