Fighting Brothers - Please Help 😔

[ronnieandreggie]

Hi all

I'm hoping someone can help me as I'm at my wits end!

i have two male degus, 9 months old. They get along mostly fine, a few squabbles over toys and food sometimes. But as soon as they come out of the cage, and especially when I do the cage out, they fight like mad. They jump into each other, roll around in a ball. Ronnie (more dominant) gets angry when Reggie goes near to him. Reggie still goes after him even though he knows he will get attacked by Ronnie. When they go back into the cage, they continue to fight for hours.

I have tried putting old substate into the cage in case they were fighting because the environment was new. This hasn't helped. When they go back in, Ronnie normally hides under their nest or in it and squeals when Reggie comes close.

They have both had minor injuries from this fighting. I have tried to separate but Reggie became very distressed. 

Any ideas why this is happening and what I can do? 

Thank you in advance!

[savvy]

Welcome to the forum. I'm sorry to read that you are having problems with Ronnie and Reggie. Love their names!

At 9 months old they are in adolescence so the fighting will be both hormonal and territory related as they fight for top position in the new territory.

Unfortunately rolling into a ball is extremely serious fighting, it called fur ball of death (FBOD) and is exactly what it says it is. They will roll into a ball, there will be no sound and they can easily kill each other. You need to stop FBOD fighting quickly. Keep a spray bottle filled with just plain water and a towel to hand to separate them. Spray them just once with the water, you don't want to get them too wet, then drop the towel over one of them to remove them. Do not try to break up a fight with your hands - you WILL get bitten and degu bites can be nasty.

I would suggest that you stop out of the cage time until things settle. Also, you say they fight when you clean their cage. How exactly are you cleaning and how often? It could be that you are removing too much of their scents, degus rely heavily of scent to establish hierarchy, and you are unwittingly resetting everything back to square one.

Also what size cage do you have? Too small a cage will lead to fighting.

If you can give us some more information, we can help you better.

[deguconvert]

Ditto!

[ronnieandreggie]

Thank you for your reply!

I take all old substrate out and clean with degu friendly wipes. Their cage is about wardrobe size, they both have a wheel each so there's no fighting over that.

Thank you x

[savvy]

The cage sounds great, but I'm afraid you're over cleaning and removing all of their scent markers.

All you really need to do is remove about 90% of the old substrate and replace with new. This will leave enough markers for them to cope with and this should only be done once a week at most.

The rest of the time, try a spot clean which means just removing the substrate in toilet areas and picking up some of the poo in other areas, then put a handful of clean substrate in the toilet areas.

A lot of owners go overboard with the cleaning in the beginning so don't be hard on yourself.

[Deleted]

I clean mine once a month maximum. They don't smell and you wouldn't look at them and think "oh my gosh they're filthy" lol! They look no cleaner before I've cleaned them out compared to after.

So in between I just shake out poop and wipe any seriously wee soaked spots. (Every other week?).

[moletteuk]

Another alternative is to just clean one or two shelves at a time.

They are fighting when they are out of the cage and after cleanouts becuase they think it is new territory. Changing the way you clean the cage should have a good effect but the playtime is harder to fix, so while you get them settled it's probably best to avoid playtime for a while. For them to get to a stage where the heirarchy over the play territory is fixed, you are probably going to need some scent cues in that space. So, you might need to put down cleanable flooring and then you could try spreading old substrate all over the play area. But, it might take them spending enough time in the play area for them to fully recognise the territory and settle the heirarchy in it. Another thing to consider would be to use a playpen and initially make the play space really small and gradually make it bigger, so there is less at stake because the new territory isn't worth fighting over.

[ronnieandreggie]

Thank you so much everyone you've all been really helpful ❤️ I'm learning so much!

X

[savvy]

Degus are a steep learning curve and we were all new owners once.

Please feel free to ask about anything you're not sure of.