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Post by savvy on Sept 24, 2021 16:41:46 GMT
Great news about your guinea pigs lump! Not so great about the lice.
Gestation in degus is 90 days so if she was last with the male on 31st July, she may only be 2/3 of the way through her pregnancy if she was impregnated on the last day. Time will tell I suppose.
I had a degu with cystitis and it cleared up quite nicely after a course of antibiotics. If you have a sterile syringe it's a good way of collecting the urine sample after she's wee'd.
You could drop an email to the manufacturer of the lice treatment and ask about any risks to unborn degu pups. There may be a warning on the packet or on any literature.
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lindie
Foraging Degu
Posts: 107
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Post by lindie on Sept 25, 2021 14:10:28 GMT
I don't know if she is pregnant. It really is the shape of her belly that makes me think she is pregnant. Remi also gained the weight while Ethel lost weight. Which also is a bit strange to me. Ethel went from 210 grams when I got her (18-7) and is 204 this week. You would think that she still grow. The previous owner said they were younger than a year. Because of their weight I guessed they were half a year when I got them from him. But maybe they just are small degus. I still have the phone number of the previous owner. I don't know if I should contact him or not. I am so curious about their background (age, when he got them, where he got them from). But I don't know if I should do it. It was a strange situation when I picked them up. The house was quite dirty and had a broken window and it did not feel right. He and his wife were divorcing, and they were selling a lot of stuff. He listed the degus for free including their cage. They lived in a dirty very small cage with the male, they had a sand bath but no wheel or hay. The male original lived alone, but then he got the females in the winter (this year) because he wanted babies. He got the degus for his son (the story of almost every rescue animal). And he fed them cornflakes as treats.... Me and my mum were very happy when we got them and drove away. but back to topic. I got a sterile syringe from the vet. And did some googling about the lice treatment. The stuff I used for my guinea pigs and want to use again contains Ivermectin. I don't have to email the manufacturer because I already found out that it is not safe for pregnant animals after googling. Which means I am going to wait a little longer before treating the degus. I also am going to wait with treating the guinea pigs, I can't find any alive lice or see them scratching. I also was thinking, wouldn't the blood come from her cone if it was a bladder infection and not from her vagina? I just checked and she still had a little bit of blood by her vagina (this time not completely dry). I am still going to get her urine tested though, because the vet was going to check the red and white blood cells she said if I remember right and I would think that with any other infection the values would also be off. (oh and I tried attaching the image with their weights)
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Post by savvy on Sept 25, 2021 14:23:33 GMT
It could be that she's on heat. Is she more active than normal?
I wouldn't worry too much about small fluctuations in their weights, anything up to 5gms is equivalent to a good pee. Also if they now have more room in their cage, their weight will drop a bit as they race around and burn fat, it should start to level out as they put on muscle.
It sounds like it was good that you rescued them as it sounds like they were living in horrible conditions. Don't get me started on the cornflakes!
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lindie
Foraging Degu
Posts: 107
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Post by lindie on Sept 25, 2021 14:40:38 GMT
I don't think she is more active. They both have been up now for a while, running in their wheel and eating lots of hay. (i often read degus don't eat much hay, but mine really like to eat hay). But nothing abnormal.
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Post by savvy on Sept 25, 2021 14:44:18 GMT
The reason most degus don't eat much hay is that they haven't been given one they like. They can be extremely fussy about hay.
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lindie
Foraging Degu
Posts: 107
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Post by lindie on Sept 25, 2021 15:11:34 GMT
ah, we always get hay bales from a nearby farm (we have pet sheep, so need a lot of hay). My degus don't eat all the pieces but pick out what they like. I don't mind throwing away o lot of hay, my guinea pigs do the same. I rather give my animals a lot of hay and they eat what they like and I throw away the rest instead of giving a little and then they don't eat it.
I also just was thinking about how Ethel would chew and scratch the bars of their old cage for hours and hours after I got them. I would play the degu relax music and that was the only way to calm her down. And how Remi would demand to be let out of the cage, she then would run around the guinea pig cage. If I had the door open and did not let her out she would bite my finger and just demand that I let her explore by forcing her way out. I was not able to get them a new cage immediately, so I moved my guinea pigs to their outside enclosure and set their cage which I got from the previous owner in my guinea pig enclosure. When I got the critter nation I was able to set their cage in my room, because this cage is very sturdy and dog proof (my service dog has a prey drive, and in case I am not around and he decides to jump against it (which he is not allowed) it needs to be sturdy)
When I got the new cage Ethel immediately stoped the bar chewing, and after I got their wheel the excessive chewing of the cardboard and other materials also stoped. The change in their behavior is huge, it is incredibly what difference a cage can make. I still would like to connect a second double critter nation and DIY the basement extension, but to them this already is a castle. Remi also doesn't want to come out and roam around anymore.
oops, i get easily side tracked and can talk about my animals for hours.. But I actually need to study...
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Post by deguconvert on Sept 25, 2021 17:37:00 GMT
I think you are doing GREAT!!
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lindie
Foraging Degu
Posts: 107
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Post by lindie on Sept 28, 2021 15:50:21 GMT
I don't know what to do anymore. I did not have the time yet to get her urine tested. But when I think about it I don't even know if it would be useful because the blood comes from her vagina and it would not makes sense that it is a bladder infection.
And also the fact that her belly has grown and her weight is still going up. She weights 256 grams today. That is 48 grams more than my other degu who I suspect is her sister.
She act normal, nothing strange or any signes she is in pain.
I don't know if i should get her urine tested, take her to another vet or just wait because she acts totally normal.
I don't even know if there are any vets nearby who have experience with degus.
What should I do? And what do you think is happening? is it that she is pregnant and that that causes the blood ?
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Post by deguconvert on Sept 28, 2021 17:57:03 GMT
Can you take some photos of her for us? One from above her body, one with her sitting up on her hind feet (like if she is begging for a treat) taken from the front, or whatever you can manage to get. It would be good to see how she is looking. She certainly is gaining weight like a pregnant degu. Photos must be hosted on a third party website. The names of two that we suggest escape me right now . . . but maybe someone else will remember and can suggest them.
I don't think it would hurt to try and get a urine sample . . . she could be pregnant AND have a bladder infection.
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Post by deguconvert on Sept 28, 2021 17:57:40 GMT
My goodness your girls are adorable!!
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Post by moletteuk on Sept 28, 2021 18:23:57 GMT
You sound concerned about Remi, so I think it's best if you consult the/a vet again. I think a urine test might be useful, they can give some indication of urine or kidney infection and I'm not sure if they could do a pregnancy test via the urine, perhaps not.
I can confirm that the vagina is a virtually invisible opening between the cone and the anus, it is tightly closed most of the time and is very difficult to even make out the line of the opening. So if the blood came from exactly that location, with no traces at the cone or anus, then it seems like it came from the vagina. Does anyone else remember if people have reported seeing menstrual blood before on the forum? It's not usual to see it, but something tells me the odd person has seen it. The other option, aside from possible pregnancy, could be a womb infection, which isn't common in degus like it is in Syrian hamsters, but does happen and is usually very serious. I would think you would see some sign of ill health, like lethargy, if this were the case.
The other thing is that it's not that unusual for weights to change quite rapidly when you first get them, do you notice Remi eat more than Ethel? Have you seen much dominance behaviour? If there has been more dominance over the new cage, then the dominant degu can quite often gain weight.
Photo hosting sites are FlickR or Postimage.org there are others, a basic one is fine, you upload the photo to the host site and then copy and post the forum or bbcode link into the reply box here.
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lindie
Foraging Degu
Posts: 107
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Post by lindie on Sept 28, 2021 21:09:32 GMT
Thanks for your replies. I am already less woried. I send belgiandegupile a message on Instragram, she is a responsible degu breeder. And she replied that bleeding during pernancy could be normal if she is acting normal.
Since the bleeding is the only sign I don't think it is a infection because she acts normal, everything is normal except the little blood and her growing belly.
This combined with the answer I got from belgaindegupile I think I am going to wait another day before doing the urine test or going to a diffrent vet because both are stressful.(I need to out her in a tub, or empty aquarium for a few hours until she pees to collect the urine)
Remi does not eat more than Ethel I think. I actually see Ethel eating more often (their cage is in my bedroom).
Remi is the dominant degu, but i only know this because when i feed them treats Ethel waits until Remi is done (somethimes Ethel trys to get a treat while Remi is eating and then they sometimes end up pushing each other in the face...) aprart from that do not see any dominance behaviour .
I will take the pictures tomorrow. You can see her round belly best when she is stretching.
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Post by teemu on Sept 29, 2021 12:01:04 GMT
If she lets you handle her, carefully holding her so you can see her underside and lifting her cone (that is, holding her upright and carefully moving the cone out of the way towards her heap) will help you check if the blood is coming from the vaginal passage or from the cone itself. The cone normally droops downwards a bit and obscures the vaginal opening. It's situated right at the base of the cone.
Small amounts of blood are not abnormal during pregnancy from what I've seen with people's degus, but from my understanding mostly occur during the final leg of the pregnancy. Which makes sense, since if she's swelling out, then she's getting ready to deliver in the near future! If she's been healthy otherwise and everything seems to be in order, some bleeding by itself is probably not alarming yet.
Generally speaking, the way pregnant females start to swell out is a very notable "pear shaping", where the belly and sides will start to bulge out while the rest of the degu stays the same. It's kinda intresting how the pups seem to kind of be... compressed together for the most part until they are just about ready to pop out.
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lindie
Foraging Degu
Posts: 107
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Post by lindie on Sept 29, 2021 17:46:26 GMT
I have uploaded the picture to flickr: flic.kr/s/aHsmWNvhhFYou can see I took a few pictures. In some positions Remi looks very round and to me pregnant. In other positions not so much. In one of the pictures you can see her round belly very well. It is the picture where see is on my hand and you see a round circle in the middle of her body. I know the blood comes from her vagina. When I saw the blood I noticed that is came directly from behind her cone. When I looked closer I saw the little opening/vagina where the blood was coming from. It is just the tiniest amount of blood. I would never have noticed if I did not take her out of the cage to see if I could feel any nipples (after someone said you can feel them around a week before delivering if I remember correct).
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Post by teemu on Sept 29, 2021 18:15:46 GMT
Yeah, that does seem like pregnancy, righ there. She's not totally swollen up yet, but she's obviously starting to show it. The bleeding does not sound worrisome, to me. On a sidenote, about preparing the cage, if you can manage it somehow, putting blockers outside the bars will likely make them last longer since they'll be hard to grab that way. They'll be harder to attack, but some fiddling with wire would likely get it sorted
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Post by savvy on Sept 29, 2021 18:37:02 GMT
How big she gets depends on how many pups she's carrying, so I'd start with early prep as soon as practical, especially the bar guides. You will find that if she is pregnant, the pups will be here before you know it.
To me, she looks pregnant in some, but not in others. I'm viewing on a tablet though so the image I get is small.
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Post by bouncy on Sept 30, 2021 11:21:58 GMT
Ditto Savvy. In some of those pictures it looks like she COULD be expecting, but in others she resembles my boys! Given the timing you gave us (start of July), she should be ready to pop right now, and I don't see that. Just my two cents....
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lindie
Foraging Degu
Posts: 107
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Post by lindie on Sept 30, 2021 12:32:34 GMT
Did i give the wrong time? I resqued them July 17, and separated them in the end off july. July 31 the male moved, i separated them 1 of 2 days before. So 29 or 30 July.
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Post by teemu on Sept 30, 2021 12:52:42 GMT
Of course, it's possible for a degu to have a very small litter. If she's expecting just 1 or 2 tykes, her belly probably wouldn't get as big as it often does. But I do agree that some pictures do not seem to have any notable belly swelling. If her belly *has* started to swell out, it is a rather quick process, so you should be seeing notable progress in a short span of time.
For the times, degus carry for 90 days, give or take, so about three months. If you separated them around July 30, then the absolute latest (but unlikely that late) would be through august, september and october, with the absolute latest birth date around October 30, or essentially at the start of November. Of course, it's impossible to say when exactly the conception would have happened, so any time in October is likely (since it hasn't happened yet). Most likely is around the first third of October, it sounds like, since she's been living with a male all July at least.
But as others have said, some of the pictures look less like pregnancy than others. From your general description of their weight gain and progress, it's possible that it's just normal growth, since adult degus weigh over 200 grams normally in any case (around this time is also when they start to put on that adult weight). It also tends to be the case in the wild that degus do not get pregnant before the age of 1 year, but they are capable of getting pregnant and this often happens in captivity (the female is more accessible for males in the same cage and all that). So it could be, especially since people with more experience are uncertain, that she's just gotten a bit rotund. Or it could be pregnancy.
Unfortunately, the only way to really be sure is to wait and see, and prepare for possible babies. If nothing happens over the next month, then clearly there's no tykes in her.
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lindie
Foraging Degu
Posts: 107
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Post by lindie on Sept 30, 2021 12:54:35 GMT
I agree that she does not look pregnant al of the time. That is why included pictures where she looks pregnant and you can see her little belly, as wel as the pictures where you cannot see her belly and she looks normal. All of the pictures where taken the same time last night.
When I hold her i can clearly feel her little round belly, which reminds of my guinea pig which i rescued while she was pregnant.
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