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Ciao!
Jun 8, 2016 0:06:35 GMT
via mobile
Post by jriggins on Jun 8, 2016 0:06:35 GMT
Hello, I've just signed up (obviously) and thought I'd say hello. I've been reading postings on here and really enjoy the info. I had two degus about 10 years ago, they both passed within a few days of each other in 2007. Last week I decided to get some again. I got 2 males (or so I thought) and added another male someone posted for free on Craigslist. Well turns out the first 2 are female. I told my husband after looking at them more closely I thought they were girls. The male was born in December, but I have no idea how old the others are. I was told the little one is a baby, but she didn't know any more than that. The 2 females were being fed hamster food, yogurt drops, sugar corn things and dried bananas. I'm trying to figure out of the eldest is pregnant or just a fatty. (A cute fatty! ) I also have a chinchilla, he's about 2, and a total ham.
OK this is long so I'll stop here!
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Post by yasmin on Jun 8, 2016 2:47:38 GMT
Welcome to the forum, jriggins. You can post a picture of the one you think is pregnant – we might be able to tell by her shape. Is the male in a separate cage from the females?
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Post by deguconvert on Jun 8, 2016 3:47:53 GMT
Hello, Jriggins, and welcome to the forum!! What a horrible diet for those degus!! What are you feeding them now? What kind of cage are you using, and as Yasmin asked, do you have them separate from the male you also got?
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Post by Bexi87 on Jun 8, 2016 6:53:30 GMT
Welcome to the forum
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Post by bouncy on Jun 8, 2016 8:54:12 GMT
Welcome! That's quite a reintroduction to degus! They're never straightforward, are they?? Are the girls showing any signs of diabetes?
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Post by moletteuk on Jun 8, 2016 9:29:33 GMT
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Post by jriggins on Jun 9, 2016 4:02:01 GMT
Hi again! The boy was moved to his own cage but not before he made the barking call. So the little one might be with wee ones. I have a friend who used to raise degus and she is interested in one so I might let her take the male.
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Post by jriggins on Jun 9, 2016 4:09:56 GMT
Woops hit send too soon! Now I've been giving them the chin food which is strictly pellets and supplementing with fresh veggies. I have some roses blooming and was going to dry some out. I also have fresh lemon balm they go nuts over, I'm currently drying a bunch out so they can have it more often without the bloating. But I'm happy to hear other suggestions, especially for Vitamin C! Or is it calcium they need?
I tried giving my chin one of the yogurt drops as a treat, he let it sit there for 2 days lol.
We just bought a bird cage with 1/2" bar spacing. The dimensions are about 30x22x48. I've put card board and grass mats down on the bottom to protect their feet and tmrw I'm going to bake some Applewood branches from our trees to put in there for them to climb. We are also going to build a few shelves so they have 3 levels.
The little one, who we have decided to name DeeDee (short for destructive degu hehe) seemed to drink a lot when I first got her but not so much now. I'll definitely keep an eye on them tho. I've eliminated nearly all sugar except the one corn kernel they had last week.
Molet, that's a great link! Thank you! I'm going to check the food content in the morning!
The male I have came from a pet store that supposedly breeds in house and makes sure they are well socialised and handled, but I don't think that's necessarily the case. He won't let you pick him up, and if you do you better be wearing Kevlar gloves! He managed to slip out of his cage and since he was supposed to be ok with being handled I picked him up to put him back in. Well he bit me twice. Hard. I cried for like 2 minutes it hurt so bad. After 5 days the swelling has mostly gone down but my finger is green from bruising and I still can't touch it or make a fist, hurts too bad! So now it's tubes for him! The girls don't care for being picked up, but they don't panic. I normally wouldn't have even attempted it yet, but they escaped at one point and I had to round them up. Fizzgig, the older female is much more ok with it. DeeDee, i just waited for her to jump in the bath house :-)
Hopefully no one is pregnant, but if they are I have 3 friends who I can trust to adopt.
Oy sorry for writing another chapter and thank you all for the warm welcome!
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Post by jriggins on Jun 9, 2016 5:05:54 GMT
Oh and here's a few pics Fizzgig DeeDee Fizzgig and DeeDee
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Ciao!
Jun 9, 2016 17:17:22 GMT
Post by bouncy on Jun 9, 2016 17:17:22 GMT
Awwwwwww
Is your hand swollen from the bites? Although the bites thems!elves had healed, I needed antibiotics before I got the use of my hand back.
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Post by uglibug on Jun 9, 2016 18:07:01 GMT
Aww, so cute. Think you might be right about Fizzgig though, she does look rather rotund. Hopefully she's just become a little porker on all that stuff they were on before.
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Post by moletteuk on Jun 9, 2016 19:11:40 GMT
The main thing with the diet is to offer lots of forage. Veg aren't very important if you get the forage right, a good selection of oil seeds are good for mineral content like calcium, we tend to advise avoiding grains so there are no glucose spikes, fresh plants don't normally cause bloating if you offer them gradually to start with (in fact fresh forage is super healthy) - more info in the feeding guide (once you've finished with the beginners guide lol!) deguworld.proboards.com/thread/16425/degu-feeding-guideYou are bit short on ideal length with the cage you have, we advise over 40" (100cm), but if you are yet to shelve it out I was wondering if it would be an option to lay it on its side so the 48" becomes the length? Handling means different things to different people, I consider my girls to be very tame but I don't normally pick them up. I think it's safer in terms of them not panicking and trying to escape and also safer for your hands to use a tube or container to move them.
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Post by jriggins on Jun 10, 2016 4:32:27 GMT
Awwwwwww Is your hand swollen from the bites? Although the bites thems!elves had healed, I needed antibiotics before I got the use of my hand back. It was but in the last 2 days it went down, but still painful (sore). Looked like my finger would pop at first lol
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Post by jriggins on Jun 10, 2016 4:34:11 GMT
The main thing with the diet is to offer lots of forage. Veg aren't very important if you get the forage right, a good selection of oil seeds are good for mineral content like calcium, we tend to advise avoiding grains so there are no glucose spikes, fresh plants don't normally cause bloating if you offer them gradually to start with (in fact fresh forage is super healthy) - more info in the feeding guide (once you've finished with the beginners guide lol!) deguworld.proboards.com/thread/16425/degu-feeding-guideYou are bit short on ideal length with the cage you have, we advise over 40" (100cm), but if you are yet to shelve it out I was wondering if it would be an option to lay it on its side so the 48" becomes the length? Handling means different things to different people, I consider my girls to be very tame but I don't normally pick them up. I think it's safer in terms of them not panicking and trying to escape and also safer for your hands to use a tube or container to move them. Thanks! After the grand kids go home this weekend I'll be doing a lot of studying! I don't think the cage would do well on its side, but let me see what I can rig up.
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