Am I Doomed?!

[gootastic]

Hi, i've newly joined this site, and am new to Degus, but have fallen in love with them.....however.....

We bought two males aged about 4 1/2 months two months ago, and have recently bought 2 more males aged about 5 months......

we have seperated them in the same cage, and tried allowing them to meet on neutral ground. there was alot of boxing and chasing, and squeaking, but all seemed ok-ish after initial nerves, so we tried putting them into one big cage....we have only had the new goos for about a week, so were ecstatic that they all seemed to be getting along ok....they were fine for a few minutes all in the same cage, and then the dominant one of the original pair started chasing the dominant of the new pair around and this then evolved into boxing and jump kicking.....we had been told to expect this and that it was dominance fighting so we left it in the hope it would settle.....UNFORTUNATLY.....it didnt, the two dominant goos started rolling round attacking each other and have drawn blood.......

we have seperated them again in their single cage (wire mesh divider!) but the dominate one of the old pair has started several non serious fights with his brother now, and doesnt seem to be able to calm down......

i think we might have rushed things...actually thats wrong....i KNOW we rushed things....but is it fixable??? will the dominant one of the originals calm down?? i dont want to have keep them seperate but is that what will happen??


Is there any way we can start from a clean slate? or is there another way to introduce them without fighting.....??

please help.....!

lou x

[deguconvert]

You are going to have to leave it for a while again. I think that if you could go back to keeping them in their separate halves, but take them out to SWAP halve every two days. That will help them co-mingle their smells as well as get used to the smells of the other goos. Do this for 8-10 days. Then, you need to go back to introductions in the neutral place. If the first try immediately erupts into foogoo fighting and goo roller ball, then go back again to the swap cage thing again, try another week. Again do neutral territory. If you get a meet with nothing more than boxing, you need to have daily neutral ground meetings until you start to see signs of acceptance, such as maybe some grooming, or at least attempts at it. If you see that, then put them into one side of the cage, supervised, for an hour or two. If that goes well, then I think you may be able to open up the whole cage and leave them to it. One thing that you need to know is that even goos that are bonded will fight aggressively if they feel too crowded. So having them all in the small half will increase tensions if left too long.

[Mojo]

Hi,

No I don't think you are doomed at all. I have recently gone through intros and it was difficult and had a few wobbles along the way. You just have to be patient and keep at it and it'll pay off.

It sounds like you maybe rushed it a bit I'd follow deguconverts advice and also take a look at this forums introduction guide and the intro guide on www.degutopia.co.uk . I followed it religiously and I still had a few scraps but got there in the end. Overall it took me a good number of weeks to get them integrated but now they are all happy together....

As yours are 5 months you'll also be fighting against their hormones. At 4-5 months they get to an age where they need to challenege the group to be dominant (even within pairs). This is normal.....