Ultra Newbie

[quirkysquirrel]

Hi All!
My name is Stephanie, and I just adopted three 2.5 year old brothers, Clay, Jack, and Rocket. I was intending to get a rat from a rescue but when I got there I fell in love with these guys instead. I really like that they have a much longer life expectancy and that they don’t pee and poop everywhere like rats do
We currently have them housed in a 30gal aquarium and have a secondary cage for housing them during cleaning time. We have plans to convert a bookshelf into a much larger home for them this weekend. There isn’t room for a wheel in the tank and I know that at least one of them is getting antsy; he loves to run like crazy when we get them out to play on the bed and is always looking for a way to get out.
So far, we are totally in love with them and look forward to spoiling them as much as possible!

[savvy]

Welcome to the forum and the weird world of degus! Seriously these little guys are like nothing you've encountered before. And there is a very steep learning curve with them.

They need a cage which is way bigger than you'd think given their size and cage size is key to happy degus. They will fight over territory if there isn't enough room and this will lead to injury and possibly death.

I would encourage you to look through the following sections deguworld.proboards.com/board/4/beginners-section
deguworld.proboards.com/board/1/cages-housing-accessories
deguworld.proboards.com/board/24/diet-nutrition
to start with as they will give you some great information about them.

It is great that you have taken on three rescues. Well done.

Please feel free to ask any questions you need to, there really are no silly ones when it comes to these guys.

[misscatafer]

Welcome! Looking forward to seeing your bookcase cage and hearing more about your three boys! I think you will soon find degus poop everywhere too unfortunately... And their favourite game is to throw their poos as far out of the cage as possible... You will be finding them everywhere! it's a good job they are so cute!

[deguconvert]

Hello Quirkysquirrel, and welcome to the forum!! I'm going to recommend a few other threads for your reading "enjoyment" OK?

deguworld.proboards.com/thread/19754/beginners-guide-degu-keeping
deguworld.proboards.com/thread/13040/nightwishravens-beginners-guide-degu-keeping
deguworld.proboards.com/thread/13070/degus

deguworld.proboards.com/thread/9396/forums-cage-size-recommendations

Go with those for now. PLEASE be completely free to ask any and all questions that you think of about your degus. They are not like rats, or like most well known rodent pets, so nothing is too weird to bring up.

[quirkysquirrel]

Thank you all so much for the welcome and some guidance!
I actually don’t mind cleaning up some poo nuggets. Pee is waaaaay worse!
I know these boys are already happier being in an environment with toys and a hut and some fresh veggies, things the rescue just couldn’t provide regularly. But getting the new enclosure built will be so much better. Jack is just dying to be out and about!

[claire]

I wanna see this bookcase

[yasmin]

Welcome to the forum quirkysquirrel.