Degu only eats 6 pellets/nuggets in 24hours

[clearsparkle]

Hi everyone

Is 6 Pellets enough I feed science select degu nuggets and give 3 in the morning and 3 at night as any more get wasted. How many pellets do you give daily?

I'm also feeding burgess excel hay with marigolds and danilions along with a sprinkle of burgess meadow herbs. Treats are either seeds nuts or dried vegetables and roots.

How do I encourage more pellet eating.

[deguconvert]

OOF! Well that is really little, and I would be fearful that they are not getting enough. I always made sure there were plenty available, even when I started to feed a more natural diet. How much are they eating of all the other things you give them? Do you weigh them ever to see what their weight is; whether it is right for their age, increasing, or decreasing? Bi-weekly weighing is good for keeping track.

[degulover21]

I Always give my degus a handful a day,even tho they don’t always touch them. Mine are usually into their foraging and seeds. 5g of nuggets about 20,10 each degu

[titchycatnipsandwich]

I'd have them freely available, in a bowl or tub, and just top that up when it looks empty and the floor around it is less covered in pellets that were kicked out of the bowl. It's also possible they aren't fans of that particular nugget - quite a few brands do a small sized bag, which is less economical than the bigger bags but would allow you to try them and see how they like them?

Mine go through nugget phases, and are currently on a Zooplus grainless guinea pig nugget that isn't... they don't love it, but I catch them nibbling them every now and again.

[claire]

If you use rat rations try them on beaphar care + mine love these and use these as a change from their science select nuggets. They smell lush so might encourage them to eat.
I know with mine sometimes they won't touch something for weeks then they try it realise the like it and love it lol
You can also get beaphar in pet shops my local garden centre has a pet section and they are in there but rat rations will allow you to order a small amount to try.
Hope this helps

[moletteuk]

Last time I weighed them, Science Selective were about 4 nuggets equalling 1g, so 6 nuggets isn't a big part of their total diet of 10 to 15g, so you may run into difficulties with vitamins and minerals, particularly vitamin D. I would try another 2 or 3 brands or even more and use them in rotation feeding 2 or 3 different ones at any one time, well, that's what I do because mine tend to go off any brand after a while. Ones to try are JR Farm grainless guinea or Rosewood Naturals grainless guinea or degu, Versele Laga Complete or Crispy, and Beaphar Care plus is OK if you need a different one to throw into the mix.

Make sure they get plenty of and variety of forage, check out this thread for ideas deguworld.proboards.com/thread/15657/bought-herb-leaf-flower-mixes?page=1 You can also collect your own.

Make sure the seeds you feed are mainly high calcium ones, you can buy 2 premade degu seed mixes from Ratrations. see this thread for more info deguworld.proboards.com/thread/15602/vegetable-seed-nut-nutrition-charts

Think about getting a UV lamp so that you can be sure they are getting enough vitamin D, it depends on the size and layout of your cage, but generally a rainforest one should be about right unless you have a very big and tall cage and then you might want a stronger one.

A UV lamp and lots of forage is the way forward if they continue to hardly eat any nuggets. It's not actually necessary to feed nuggets if you are prepared to do some research and take care with offering enough forage and the right seeds and providing a UV lamp.