nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 1:17:41 GMT
Right...
So, it’s been a while since I’ve been here. We got our degus and all was brill. One passed. So, with advice from the independent pet shop we were using, we got another (I don’t know if anyone remembers but I got 5 degus, one each for myself and my 4 daughters). I acclimated them by portioning a quarter of the cage off for the baby. Took 7 days, and then I put the baby in the cage for short spurts working up to full time. That went well.
I forage for them. They get pellets just to make sure I’m not missing any key nutrients - but they get tons of fresh bits (I love Scotland lol, foraging is amazing here!).
So it’s been 6-7 weeks since the baby was in the cage full time. And funny enough, this has very little to do with the baby, I’m just giving information that may be pertinent, a time line if you will.
So my girl Roo and one of the ‘top dogs’ Honey have started to go at it. Fighting. Blood drawn, the whole lot.
I just want to make sure I’m doing right, cause these wee beasties are a big part of my world ❤️. So I’ve portioned Roo off. She’s the one starting the fights, so I’ve again sectioned a quarter of the cage off and put her in it. I’ve also put the baby in with her so she’s not alone. I thought this best because although the baby is a BULLY and caused no end of issues - there’s seemed to be no strife between the 2. I didn’t want her to be alone if I could avoid it.
I’ve cleaned up Honey. Wiped down the blood. It’s not much, but there are several abrasions. Not life threatening at all. Honey is obviously put out but eating, grooming (herself and her cage mates still left in her part of the cage), and taking dust baths. She seems to be perking up now that Roo has been separated. Obviously I will take her to the vet if at all it’s seems it’s needed.
All this story just to get to this - WHAT DO I DO NOW? How long do I leave them separated? There’s been no more fighting. How do I reintroduce them? Degu experts - wtf is going on and how do I deal with it?? I would ideally like them in the same cage - but not at the expense of one of our wee Roos. Help me do this right please?
Thank you, Nika xx
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 1:24:25 GMT
Oh - just to point out - the death was not in any way due to the pet shop or being provided with unfit degus. It was completely my fault and it took me a month to even talk to the pet shop about it. Our hutch had 1 set of locks on each door - my cat decided to prove that he was Houdini and got the cage open. Mellow the degu got out and scarpered and the cats did what cats do. There were no injuries to the degu, our cats our used to small pets, but degus do haul arse and I think the cat quite literally scared the degu to death. And none of this happened in a vacuum - I heard the cats start running and I went straight up the stairs. The degu has hidden in my books, not a mark on her but her breathing was ragged and she just passed. Luckily my daughter was awake and held her. We now have a second set of locks on each door - the cats can’t knock these ones loose even if they tried. I’m sorry, I didn’t know my cat could do that he’s only a baby himself. We’ve had everybody happy and settled for 7+ weeks now.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 1:27:29 GMT
And I’ve just realised there’s another thread I should’ve posted this in instead 😬 sorry. I’m bad at this, I saw ‘behaviour’ and I assumed fighting was a behaviour. I should’ve looked at the other options.
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Post by savvy on Aug 13, 2019 1:37:58 GMT
I'm sorry to hear about the problems you're encountering. Cats are hunters, that's there nature and there's nothing you can do about that unfortunately, so don't beat yourself up about it.
Now to the fighting; can you remind me how old your degus are and what size cage they are in? It's possible that's it's either dominance, territory related, or hormonal. Or they could have just had a falling out over something. Degus can be sulkers.
You will need to wait for the injuries to heal before atempting a reintroduction.
Reintroductions need to be done in a neutral territory so that everyone is on an even footing. But first you need to see how they react to the sight of each other through a safety barrier (they need to be able to see, smell and hear each other, but not physically reach each other.) Unfortunately there are no timescales as to how long this will take.
Please don't worry too much, we will take you through each step of the reintroduction and help you get them back together.
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Post by savvy on Aug 13, 2019 1:40:23 GMT
And I’ve just realised there’s another thread I should’ve posted this in instead 😬 sorry. I’m bad at this, I saw ‘behaviour’ and I assumed fighting was a behaviour. I should’ve looked at the other options. Don't worry, it's not a problem. It's more important to sort the problem than the placing of the thread. We can move it across if necessary.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 1:50:18 GMT
There’s 5 degus that are in a 2 level cage that is 1.42 metres long (each level) and 4 ft high. There is multiple wee levels on each level (if that makes sense) a each level is broken up a bit to give them more run/jump space. 4 of the degus came to us as babies in April - I have no clue exactly how old they were when we got them, but I know they were at least a couple few weeks older than the baby we got after them (she was tiny!).
From my eye it seems like a dominance fight. If there would’ve not been blood, I would’ve left them to it. I’ve had all sorts of animals throughout my near 40 years and it’s def seemed a dominance thing. Roo was making a play for alpha and quite frankly giving Honey a run for her money.
I assumed I would have to keep them separated until the smell of blood was gone. I’ve been away from my house all day school clothes shopping and I’m feeling a bit gutted that I wasn’t here to catch this earlier.
Currently the bully degu is separated with the baby of the lot and they are doing brill. There’s been no more shrill triple squeaks.
I’ll reread your message and see if there’s any questions I missed
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 1:53:20 GMT
They are all in the same cage still - the hutch has a sleeper section that the bully and the baby are in separated from the others by rodent mesh (meaning they can’t chew through it). They can see each other. Right now, the bully is mainly interested in getting back into the main part of the cage. I will keep an eye on them to see how she’s reacting to the sight of the bullied degu
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Post by savvy on Aug 13, 2019 1:58:51 GMT
I've just gone back over a couple of your threads to do some basic maths. From what I can work out, they should be about 6-7 months old now, does that sound about right?
If so, they are heading straight into their adolescent phase which will last for about another year. This is when their hormones run riot, they challenge for dominance and basically turn into the degu version of stroppy teenagers. Fighting is a normal part of this as they are trying to work out who will be where in the hierarchy. But you have done the right thing separating if the fighting starts to get out of hand.
In these cases you need to be the top degu, and try to stop any fallings out when you see things beginning to escalate by banging on the side of their cage, giving a short sharp call of 'no' and generally keeping them in line.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 2:04:39 GMT
I’m guessing the degus range from 8-12 weeks when you get the from the pet shop (they only bring in an order once a month). So I’d say the first 5 (minus the one who passed) were 12 ish weeks while the baby we got later was 8 weeks if that makes sense. We got the first set in April. The baby came 8 july. So the baby has been with us for 6 weeks, and was about 8 weeks old when we got her. If I assume the others were about 12 weeks old when we got them, then they’d be about 16 weeks old.
This is all an educated guess.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 2:07:32 GMT
I've just gone back over a couple of your threads to do some basic maths. From what I can work out, they should be about 6-7 months old now, does that sound about right? If so, they are heading straight into their adolescent phase which will last for about another year. This is when their hormones run riot, they challenge for dominance and basically turn into the degu version of stroppy teenagers. Fighting is a normal part of this as they are trying to work out who will be where in the hierarchy. But you have done the right thing separating if the fighting starts to get out of hand. In these cases you need to be the top degu, and try to stop any fallings out when you see things beginning to escalate by banging on the side of their cage, giving a short sharp call of 'no' and generally keeping them in line. You just did exactly what I just did lol. And yes, you’re roughly correct with the ages (as correct as I can be anyways lol). Okay, so I’ve done okay. Wait till the wounds heal. Reintroduce-slowly ... I’m assuming?. Be the boss. *thank you*
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 2:09:39 GMT
I If I assume the others were about 12 weeks old when we got them, then they’d be about 16 weeks old. This is all an educated guess. 16 + 12 I should’ve said sorry
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 2:11:19 GMT
I have human teenagers 😭 I’ve got to do this from all sides?! 😂
(I’ll do it happily. The time I spend with the degus makes me smile ear to ear... not so much with my 16 year old daughter!)
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Post by savvy on Aug 13, 2019 2:14:54 GMT
No problem, just let us know how it's going.
The rate of the reintroductions will be set by the degus themselves. Some will go back together on the first reintroducation, others will take longer. There's no way of knowing until you try to reintroduce them.
If there are any open wounds, please remove the sand bath in order to prevent it getting into the wounds.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 13, 2019 2:31:43 GMT
Thank you. I’ll remove the sand bath from the cage (it was bath night)- every other night) x
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Post by moletteuk on Aug 13, 2019 11:00:24 GMT
It sounds like you have done everything right, Nika. Once they calm down see if you can arrange some sort of side by side but with mesh or bars between them situation. Do you have a separate spare cage that you could put alongside the main cage?
The only other thing I can think of to mention is potential triggers, sometimes they can fight over wheels, food bowls, or sand bath etc, just thought I would mention that as having a sand bath that they only have at certain times can be a particular trigger.
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Post by deguconvert on Aug 13, 2019 19:57:26 GMT
You're doing great, Nika! I sympathize on the teenage humans! I've got a "so close to 16 years old he can taste it!" (two weeks to go) and two 20 year olds . . . who don't have the drama but do have the habits of a 16 year old.
I was wondering what the depth of your cage is, front to back? Is this a home construction? Is it cage or wire? I'm SO intrigued!! I'm thinking that with 4 feet of height, you should be able to add in a third level . . . but having said that . . . when you say above that you have two complete levels, is that base level (assuming it is part of the internal habitat space) and one above that, or is that base with two more above? LOL! Sorry! I hope I'm not making this confusing! I've just noticed over the years that some people don't count the base as a level. Sort of like some apartment buildings where the ground floor is Main, and then first level above is 1 . . . instead of 2. Or the hospital my Mom frequented the last five years, which has the ground level floor you enter on which is called Main, go down one floor to the cancer wing and it is called Ground . . . but because it is built into a hillside, that side of the building ALSO has "ground level" exits, one more floor down is finally the basement. Despite the face that I was there every two to three months with my Mom, I always had to double check that I was going to the right floor!!
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 14, 2019 10:17:00 GMT
It sounds like you have done everything right, Nika. Once they calm down see if you can arrange some sort of side by side but with mesh or bars between them situation. Do you have a separate spare cage that you could put alongside the main cage? The only other thing I can think of to mention is potential triggers, sometimes they can fight over wheels, food bowls, or sand bath etc, just thought I would mention that as having a sand bath that they only have at certain times can be a particular trigger. They are already side by side in the hutch. They can see, smell, interact with each other, just not touch each other. The hutch I have has a dark area - when I set the hutch up, I made sure that I adapted that area in case I needed to temporarily separate degus, for injury or illness or fighting. Alls I have to do is insert a page of rodent mesh over the entrance into the dark area - so that’s how they are now. They are still chatting to each other through the mesh I might need to put a second wheel in - they don’t seem to fight over it per se, they kind of jump in in intervals and it knock the running degu off. They actually all usually cohabitate really well. They don’t fight over the bath either, they just jump in lol, sometimes there’s 3 at a time in the bath and there’s never a squeak of protest. The wheel though, I do worry about that because they all love it. It just takes up tons of floor space and I was hoping to wait until I had added a 3rd level to the hutch before I added a second wheel.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 14, 2019 10:27:40 GMT
You're doing great, Nika! I sympathize on the teenage humans! I've got a "so close to 16 years old he can taste it!" (two weeks to go) and two 20 year olds . . . who don't have the drama but do have the habits of a 16 year old. I was wondering what the depth of your cage is, front to back? Is this a home construction? Is it cage or wire? I'm SO intrigued!! I'm thinking that with 4 feet of height, you should be able to add in a third level . . . but having said that . . . when you say above that you have two complete levels, is that base level (assuming it is part of the internal habitat space) and one above that, or is that base with two more above? LOL! Sorry! I hope I'm not making this confusing! I've just noticed over the years that some people don't count the base as a level. Sort of like some apartment buildings where the ground floor is Main, and then first level above is 1 . . . instead of 2. Or the hospital my Mom frequented the last five years, which has the ground level floor you enter on which is called Main, go down one floor to the cancer wing and it is called Ground . . . but because it is built into a hillside, that side of the building ALSO has "ground level" exits, one more floor down is finally the basement. Despite the face that I was there every two to three months with my Mom, I always had to double check that I was going to the right floor!! The cage is a wooden double level hutch. Wood. Mesh in 3 doors, the 4th door is to the dark room so it’s solid construction. Each level is pretty high to a degus standard, I’d say 20 inches? So ive broken each level up with ledges for more running and jumping space. I was planning on adding a 3rd level to the hutch, but not by breaking up the existing levels - but by adding a wire cage to the top of the hutch. The only real downside to the hutch over a large wire cage is that it doesn’t have nearly as much access to natural light. So the plan is to design a ‘solarium’ on the top of the hutch. I’ll do that by maybe getting some of those guinea pig cage sections and making a wire cage on top of the hutch. I haven’t sorted out exactly how to do it yet. That’ll give them access to natural light as there’s a window behind the hutch. The hutch is 5 feet long, nearly 4 feet high (I’d say about 40 inches?) and 18-20 inches deep? It’s fine in size for them now, but the intent has always been to add a 3rd level finding a cage solution to suit 5 degus was definitely the most complex part of getting these wee beasties! If you want to get a visual of what I’m talking about, google 2 level hutch. I was originally concerned about the hutch being constructed of wood given degus are avid little chewers - but my worries were unfounded. I added in so many wooden ledges, and then the ramp up to the second level that they have a lot of things to chew without resorting to chewing on the cage. So far it’s just the ledges they mainly chew and that was part of my intent when I put them in.
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nika
Foraging Degu
Posts: 106
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Post by nika on Aug 14, 2019 10:36:59 GMT
Thank you for all the help ❤️
Update:
Honey (the injured degu) is doing really well. Between her and her sisters, the injury has been all cleaned up (it’s hard to wipe degu skin with a cloth, they have tons of soft fine fur!). I won’t attempt reintroductions until I can’t feel the scab on her as I don’t want her to be perceived as weak by my degu. I’ve gotten a bit firmer with them, as instructed. Mainly it’s just to discourage the bully and the baby from worrying at the rodent mesh separating them from their sisters though. They really want back into the main cage. Even Honey, injured degu, has been trying to break her sisters out of isolation - so I’m taking that as a good sign. The 2 degus don’t seem to have any issue with each other, at least not through the mesh. The lot of them really hate being separated 😔
When I start reintroductions, I had planned on putting a towel down in the bath tub (so they don’t slip about). Should I just put the 2 who have been fighting in the tub? And should I do what I did with the baby? Reintroduce the bully degu into the cage for short spurts? What’s the best way forward please??
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Post by moletteuk on Aug 14, 2019 10:41:59 GMT
I think as they get bigger and territory and dominance become more of an issue now that their hormones are surging, I think that extra level is worth prioritising. You might be able to use thick wooden battens for the framework, or possibly aluminium angle sections or similar and then use some 15mm (ish) mesh to cover. They will really love having it on top in the sunshine Already having them side by side is a good thing. Look for their chatter becoming calm and friendly and ideally ignoring each other or hanging out very calmly on either side of the mesh. Do you have a neutral, safe space where you can try and introduction?
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