Spaying Degus?

[GoosofCamelot]

I was just thinking, how rabbits and cats etc can get spayed and nuetered. 
Can Degus? If you kept 2 or 3 girls together, would they need spaying/whatever its called. Lol

[ntg]

Good question! It's only really necessary to neuter the male if you're going to keep a male and female together to prevent any surprises!

Neutering generally doesn't work as a way of calming boys down, like it does with other animals as they produce testosterone both in the testes and elsewhere. And spaying is rare as it's a lot more invasive than neutering and dangerous in such small creatures.

[Maravilla]

Spaying and neutering are two completely different operations and have different consequences. The only consequence they have in common is that both prevent any offspring. Google will tell you more about the processes in question.
In degus, only boys are neutered, and in their case it is not an easy surgery. In females it is only done when there is a medical indication for it, like a metritis or so.

[GoosofCamelot]

Interesting.. thank you both for your thorough answers!

[Maravilla]

I have to admit that I am a little bit confused, now that I checked it again. I only checked the translations which seemed very clear but now it seems that the difference is not really that big.

[ntg]

I suppose with the testes being inside the abdominal cavity that it is more similar to spaying than in other animals, both are more invasive than the usual cut, fish out and snip you see in neutering for other animals, just with spaying is requires a bigger cut for the removal of the uterus and ovaries. I imagine they are pretty small and can be difficult to get at though!

[moletteuk]

Girls kept together would not need spaying. It's only ever done for gynae health reasons, it's not done routinely for behavioral reasons, like it is for rabbits.