Solitary Degus

[ra]

Anyone else doing their best to keep a single Degus?

RK We seem to be in similar situations. Being Virgil is male , I hate to try to introduce and mediate between two males. I don't want a breeding pair so buying a female cage mate is out. Not willing to risk surgery to neuter my Degus either.

I spend lots of time with him. Make sure he gets a chance to take a dust bath each day. Keep various toys around his cage. I bought a three level Chinchilla cage for him. The only problem I had is he was chewing his way out of the hard plastic base. I checked around all the local pet shop and supply places - they all had plastic bases!!! My husband and Dad fashioned a protective wall around the inside of the base with aluminum flashing. Roll the edge so there's nothing sharp for him to get cut on. Working well so far.

I make him a hammock of sorts out of some nice soft material. So far he ignores that. Have a coupe of wood and coconut shell parrot toys hanging horizontally so he can reach them better to play.

I hand fed him every morning and nite at first so he would become accustom to me as quickly as possible. He has learned to hop up and sit on my hand and to sit out on his porch made by putting a cardboard box under his lower cage door. I put old computer mouse pads on the cage door so he doesn't hurt his feet on the wires.

Virgil seems to view me as an odd furless sort of Degus. He loves me to groom him with my fingers. Especially likes his ears and chest scratched. Do have to watch though, co-grooming is hard on human skin. Have some half a dozen small bites on my hands. He starts out gently then gets carried away once in a while.

One caution if your Degus squeals loudly but appears unhurt wait a bit before offering you hand for him to jump up. Apparently Virgil was feeling either frightend or abandond - since I worry so about that I immediately offered my hand and he bit through my first finger at the base. Hurt like heck and bled quite a bit. I've learned to speak quietly and leave him be for a while as long as he looks ok. That is the only time he has ever bitten me with any agression.

So how are you and you guy getting along?

Anyone?

[rk]

yeah, some advice would be nice. no way am i geting mine neutered!

im planing 2 buy a much biger cage. but al the stores say that they are sold out of degu cages, and i dont want the same problem ra has, since my Chikan chews everything.

im not as lucky as ra... mine doesnt let me pet him at all. but im gona post about that later...

[ra]

None of the local pet stores had cages with metal bases. I'll take that back they had a small cage not a multi-level or habitat type.

I know we could build a cage using an aquarium base but they are expensive, hard to clean, and not as airy so don't want to go that route.

[Sunshinemeg]

I kept my first degu Gizmo on his own. I bought two, but the spent days fighting, and as i didnt know anything about Degus, I assumed this was bad so took one back to the pet store.
Gizmo was amazingly tame, but I wish I had taken the time to learn more about degus so I could have given him a better life.
Gromit was happy on his own for the first 9months, but loves having marmalade more! Not sure how he feels about the baby boys, they walk on his head and make him squeak!!!

SUNSHINEMEG ;D

[krystina123]

my nibbler is a lone degu and the highlight of my life. Well when i got nibbler at the pet store they told me that i didn't need to get another degu as long as i spent about 2 hours a day with him, so well i try my best but i go to school and work so that doesn't get to be 2 hours but i have him located in the living room so that my family can play with him when they see him, so that works out a bit better. Me and my dad made him his own cage with chicken wire and good-ol-boards. its quite high, we put some small boards on the sides to nail the chicken wire to and to use as sitting posts. i also have some large hamster tubes that i use as a sort of ladder for nibbler to get to the higher parts of the cage. he gets on quite well alone but i can see he's lonely and i want to get another (a female ;D)but my rents wont let me and oh do i feel bad for my nibbler. see we live on a farm and they don't understand my attachment to a rodent. well if this this post kinda trails off im sorry its really late at night.
im glad i found this site, its very informative.

[ra]

kristina123 Hi! Glad to hear from another lone Degus lover. I was happy to hear Nibbler is doing well but a bit disheartened to hear you feel Nibbler's lonely. What signs and symptoms do you see?