Re-homing pups

[ryanj]

Helloooo,

So after double, triple and quadruple checking and seeing what you guys thought...we're sure that Prea has had 2 boys and a girl.

We're going to keep the girl pup with mum and her 3 aunties and begin designing a suitable home built cage for them within the next few months.

As for the boys, we do have a family interested with older children in their late teens. I have some questions...

When should we definitely separate the boys from the girls? 6 weeks?

We have a cage for the boys (the P@H standard cage but have told the family to be to get something bigger as soon as they can). Once we put them into that should we wait a while so they settle in their new cage before going to the new family?

I assume the lone girl will be ok with our other girls not be depressed about her brothers being taken away?

Any other useful suggestions/tips on re-homing pups would be great 

Thanks guys!

[yasmin]

• Separate the boys from the girls anytime between 6 weeks (to make sure they are weaned) and 8 weeks (to make sure they are out of there before they can get the girls pregnant).
• I think you can give them to the new family as soon as they are in their own cage. Whether they are with you or with the new family while they experience the new cage should not make that much of a difference other than it will be a lot of change for them all at once but they are young ones so they should adapt reasonably easily.
• Don't worry about the lone girl. She will probably have little issue with the brothers being gone because she is still with her mom and aunties.

• Only other advice would be that you make sure the new family is free to contact you for advice if needed, and that you encourage them to join this forum.

(PS: Also, it would be great for the babies' sake if you would be mentally prepared to take them back if the new family can't keep them – that would help minimize the chance of those babies ending up in a shelter and split up from each other.)

[moletteuk]

You could keep track of the boys development, when they stop nursing, how they take to hard food, how restless and independant they are and maybe post a couple of pics at six weeks and hopefully somebody will give you an opinion whether they should stay with mum another couple of weeks.

Make sure the whole family wants the degus as late teenagers will likely leave home in the lifetime of the degus. I think it's a good idea to state that you want them to come back to you if anything should prevent them keeping them.

[ryanj]

Thank you both!

I will be able to keep in close contact (at least for now) as the Mum in the family who wants them is my manager at work.

I will make sure they have my contact details should they ever need anything and will offer to have them should they ever go on holiday or are unable to continue to have them. I'd much rather they came back to us.

Thanks again for all the advice, you're both awesome! I'll post a picture of the bots at 6 weeks and see how they're :-)