Degu acting weird

[deguconvert]

Hello y00nm. Welcome to the forum!

Do you know what it was that scared him? Were you present when he was scared? It sounds a bit like his trust of you has been damaged as a result of the scare.

Fear is something that doesn't follow logic, so while it may have had nothing to do with you, he seems to be associating you with it. That can be a difficult thing to overcome, especially in a really young one where the impressions left by the fear can go very deep. This is something you can work through and help him overcome, but it will require patience and lots of time. Can you tell us what you have been doing to build a trust bond with him? You mentioned treat training . . . how are you going about doing that?

May I ask, are you sure your degu is male? Both male and female degus have a urethral cone, which to our eyes looks exactly like a penis. This link deguworld.proboards.com/thread/13070/degus will help you to determine the sex of your degu for sure. I ask that because, you want to make sure that the second degu you get is the same sex. Degus reproduce at a massive rate, and believe me . . . you don't want to experience that.

Your bigger cage . . . is it a Thickets cage?

[teemu]

It sounds like you might need to take things very slowly. If he was spooked by something and associates it with you, he has to learn to trust you on his own terms. It can take months for a scared degu to warm up to people. For now, do not try to force him to be touched, but instead just stay near the cage, keep the cage door open, maybe put a hand inside (but do not try to touch him, allow him to come to you if he wants to) and leave some treats so he he learns that you are nice and there's no tricks.

Some degus do not like to be held at all, and some only like to be held in their own terms. Degus are generally somewhat shy animals, and don't like to be forced in any way when it comes to things like handling, so it can take months for them to work up trust.

Spend some time every day near his cage like I said, keep a hand there but do not touch him (It's fine to let him touch you, of course, but don't try to grab him if he comes close), leave some treats, and reward him if he actually comes close to you. It's a slow effort, but after degus learn to trust the owner, they're very loyal pets

[deguconvert]

I agree with Teemu, except that for the first while, I would not have the door open. Sit by the cage, offer treats through the bars and talk with him. Build from there. If he jumps out of the cage through the open door and you have to chase him to find or catch him, it will damage things even further. Look here . . . deguworld.proboards.com/thread/15795/links-interesting-food-threads . . . and you will find good suggestions for treats and things that are healthy for him.

Your cage, while bigger than you started with, is actually too small for him. Degus are long range foraging animals and are built for distances. We could never have a cage large enough to compare to what they have in the wild. BUT if you are going to have a second one coming in, you need at least twice the cage size and surface area than what you currently have. As well, when you are introducing two strange degus . . . you need two separate cages for the process. One for each degu . . . so a the very least, a second thickets cage for the new degu coming. I'm going to give you a link to our recommended cage sizes . . . deguworld.proboards.com/thread/9396/forums-cage-size-recommendations . . . and I fully expect you to have questions about this so please, ask away. We do our best to adhere to these recommendations, but also know that many things in life rest on available space, family, finances, health, and so on. We know that understanding and helping you, is helping your degu.