goofan
Warbling Degu
Posts: 27
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Post by goofan on Sept 29, 2005 21:49:17 GMT
I'm new to this forum and fairly new to degu ownership. I have 3 sisters that are about 5 months old. I acquired them about a month ago. I have them in my classroom and bring them home on the weekends.
Yesterday I left school and brought one of them home with me to bond. She was my most shy girl and I wanted to help her gain some trust in me. We had fun last night. However, I brought her back to school this AM and put her back in the cage and went outside for yard duty. When I came back, the poor thing had been attacked by the other 2. She has a bite wound on her tail and her back. She was bleeding.
I took the healthy two out and put them in a temporary area and let the hurt one calm down. She came out of the cage and went into the travel cage on her own. (I know better than to handle an injured animal!) She was making a very sad "weep weep" noise while she was in the cage.
I called the vet and had my husband bring her up to be attended to. He came back to tell me that the degu is fine, however, she bit the vet assistant when the assistant was putting antiseptic on the wounds. Since she broke skin, the protocol in our state is to destroy the animal since it's considered "Wild" in the US. Thankfully, the vet is sympathetic to our situation and called the state to get a waiver for the extermination. They are allowing us to quarantine her for 30 days and follow up with her at 10 and 30 days out.
In addition to all of this, one of the other goos in the classroom was being handled at the end of school and it nipped 2 students (one broke the skin very slightly)...Now I have a student who started freaking out about the possibility of having rabies. So, needless to say, I've had a rough day. I explained to the class about rabies, and incubation periods, and how we've had them for over 30 days which is the normal quarantine time, so we shouldn't be worried about that, besides the fact that they've never been in the wild, yadda yadda yadda.
In retrospect, I am so sorry that I made the simple mistake of reintroducing the degu back into the cage without having her scented. In addition to keeping her at home, I happened to clean her cage last night as well, so the other 2 probably didn't recognize her at all.
I had a number of good teaching moments for my 6th graders today. Why we don't touch animals who are injured. Why we don't punish animals for behaving as animals, etc.
Anyway...I know I'm new, but I thought I could get some feedback and support. I've only had these goos for 30 days or so, but I've absolutely fallen in love with them. And it pains me to no end that now their existence may be threated because of this incident.
Thanks for listening.
-Amy
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Post by worthym on Sept 29, 2005 22:09:20 GMT
I can only express my sympathies to you. It is obvious from the tone of your post that you have quickly become besotted with these degus, and I hope that everything works out ok in the end. I agree that the problem was reintroducing the degu after the period away from the others. I also keep gerbils, and in a similar situation, I know of someone who had a gerbil escape from a group tank. Even though only away from the cage for a short time, when reintroduced, the gerbils went to attack the one that had escaped. I suspect that as you have already stated so correctly in your post, taking the degu home, although a great idea to bond with her, meant that there were new scents and the remaining two degus didn't recognise her again, and thus saw her as a threat. I find it amazing that if the rodent breaks the vets skin it could be euthanized. Its hard to understand for me, as with small rodents they will often bite if they are stressed or in pain. I'm just glad that your vet was sympathetic, and I hope things go well for the degu, and that you can eventually take her home with you. Finally I would like to say, although this has been a very difficult situation for you, I applaud you no end for having the degus at school, and teaching your pupils about good animal ownership. We all make mistakes at times, but I am so glad that you have used a situation like this as a learning experience, and I only wish there were more people like you around. I'm sure everyone here will have sympathy for your situation, and I send you, and of course your degus, my best wishes. Welcome to the forum, hopefully things will be better soon, and you will have some good news to tell us all. Please keep us updated.
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Post by diet otaku on Sept 29, 2005 23:19:49 GMT
for being so new to degu ownership, you're doing remarkably well. kudos on teaching your students about animal instinct and such. the quarantine period will probably be for the best, allowing her to recuperate away from the other degus. just be sure to reintroduce them slowly. if they didn't recognize her after one night away, surely they won't recognize her after 30 days.
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goofan
Warbling Degu
Posts: 27
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Post by goofan on Sept 30, 2005 0:00:13 GMT
Actually, we have her at home in quarantine. Basically we're just keeping her away from the 2 that I have at school. It's funny...even though the other 2 beat up on her this morning, they seem sad without her. I really feel bad for them. They're very sweet little animals. They wrestle alot and fuss, but they always hang together. It's got to be hard for all of them now..especially the quarantined one.
I've had to name her since we took her to the vet. The students all have different names for them since I couldn't tell them apart. Now I'll be calling the injured one Meriweather and the other two Flora and Fauna...you know, from the fairies in Cinderella.
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Post by Sunshinemeg on Sept 30, 2005 12:25:23 GMT
Firstly, welcome to the site, Im sorry its for such a sad reason, but hopefully we can help you along.
I hate to say this, and as I am sure you are also now realising, the reason the fight happened was because you had seperated the degus. Even with just a couple of hours apart they need to re-establish who is in charge, no matter what relation they are! So for me now to avoid such a situation, when one of my degus has to visit a vet, all four go along for the ride!!!! Unfortunately, knowing this in retrospect doesnt help what has happened, so for now I will focus on getting them back together.
Does the injured degu have to stay at home? or could it be allowed to be in the school? If she can, then you need to either section off a part of the main cage for her to be in, or get a second cage that she can be in next to her sisters. Once she has had time to heal, you need to spend about a week swapping her into the main cage, and her sisters out into her cage, for a day at a time. This way they will each become far more familiar with the various scents. After this time, allow all 3 degus to meet out in the open. a room where they can run on the floor and not get into anything is ideal for this. Make sure if its in the school that it is not during school time, as you also need it to be quite quiet to avoid too many distractions. If this initial meeting goes well, repeat it the next day. If this goes well, you can try transferring all the degus into the main cage. But ensure that you clean the main cage thoroughly first.
As they are such a young age still, and as they are female, you have a very good chance of them re-establishing their bond and living together again. If however you have to keep the injured degu out of the school, I would recommend you bring the others home, and try the method I listed to get them back together at home instead.
good luck!
As a matter of caution for the degu that nipped your pupil, you need to make sure the degus are not held from above, as this is very scary when you are so small, and all your preditors usually fly or are bigger than you!! Also make sure the pupils dont hold them too tightly, and there are not too many around at the time as this can also scare the degus.
Good luck
meg ;D
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goofan
Warbling Degu
Posts: 27
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Post by goofan on Oct 1, 2005 13:00:26 GMT
Thank you so much for all of the good advice. I like the idea of keeping them caged in proximity to one another. It may help the little one not get so lonely. I'll be implementing the new arrangement this weekend. She's still healing, so I'll just keep the cages close to one another.
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Post by Sunshinemeg on Oct 1, 2005 13:05:25 GMT
Yes, it will certainly stop her feeling lonely, and when the time comes to introduce them again, they wont be complete strangers!
Good luck Keep us posted
meg ;D
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goofan
Warbling Degu
Posts: 27
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Post by goofan on Oct 2, 2005 6:04:16 GMT
Well, I decided to put Merriweather back up in the classroom with her sisters. While we were prepping the area, we had the two sisters close to Merriweather's cage and found that one of the girls, the bigger bullyish one, fought and growled at her through the bars...the other one (my favorite) was quiet and gentle with her.
I placed Merriweather in the 2 sister's cleaned out cage so she could explore and get her scent in there while we cleaned Merriweather's cage. Then I put each one of the 2 sisters in Merriweather's clean cage in turn to scent it up and smell around a bit. Then I put Merriweather in the dustbath and into her cage, and each of the other two took a bath as well and went into their cage. No problems.
I placed the cages together so they're about an inch or so apart (They can't make contact). They were very funny. They talked to each other through the cage and Merriweather was back to her normal Degu self. It was good for her to be near her sisters again.
Here's my new concern. It seems that the bullyish one (Flora) is now jealous of the other one in the cage with her (Fauna). They began to fight. Very viciouslly, but no blood. I was nervous to leave them tonight, but it was already 11PM and I couldn't hang around any longer. The three of them always wrestled and squabbled, but now I'm panicky because of what happened to Merriweather. I don't know what to do. I mean, I can't babysit them forever...and spraying Flora doesn't work...she just glares at me and continues fighting. She's very stubborn.
The other thing that I noticed was that while Merriweather has been away, the other two have been acting very oddly. Not their normal friendly selves. Don't want to explore, don't want to play. It took them awhile to even sleep in their pile without Merriweather. Now that she's back on the scene, they began acting more normally - except for the increased aggression between Flora and Fauna.
I know that this is way too much projecting human thoughts and emotions onto animals, but it reminds me of typical female jealousy relationships. Girls never work in threes. THere's always someone who gets left out. I'm wondering if this is some of what I'm seeing. The reason I say that is because Flora, the bully, continued to fight and growl at Merriweather before the cages were set together and they were face to face through a cage. Fauna sniffed her and looked glad to see her. It seems like Fauna understands that the reason Merriweather isn't with them in their cage is because Flora was mean to her. And I'm noticing Fauna being aggressive to Flora....demonstrating dominance with fighting and "mounting" behavior. Prior to this, it seemed that Flora was "top dog."
Anyway, I'm sure this seems a bit fanciful, but I call it like I see it. I just hope that I don't return tomorrow to find a bloody mess.
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