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Post by amie on Nov 3, 2011 0:43:08 GMT
Haha! I say "Chinchilla, chipmonk, gerbil type thing that moves like a Squirrel.... oh just come and meet them, then you'll see!" lol.
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Post by jbaggs92 on Nov 3, 2011 17:16:23 GMT
I looked through all of the posts and it looks like no one from the United States has said anything yet. I, too, cannot speak for the entire country, but Degus are pretty much unknown here. My girlfriend (I swear) knows every animal known to man. When I saw some degus in the pet store I though, "Finally! An animal she doesn't know!" But, she managed to know of them, but not too much about them, and if she is barely acquainted with them, I can't see anyone but the vast minority knowing anything about them. I was completely ignorant to them when I purchased them, and they are now proving to be some of the greatest pets I've ever had! They're great!
But, that's pretty much the United States view. Oh, and here, we don't call cavies by that name, they're Guinea Pigs here. If you went up to someone and said, "Have you ever owned a cavie?" They would almost surely say, "Whats that?" even if they have had a guinea pig before. I'm a little upset with the ignorance sweeping the US... Obama making it so there is really no incentive to better yourself isn't helping, but I'm not going to get into politics here.
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Post by nuttz on Nov 3, 2011 17:48:05 GMT
thanks for clearing that up for me jbagg92, i was wondering what a "cavie" was, i felt too stupid asking as ive ask far too many silly/ stupid questions of late...im beginning to look like the forum idiot lol
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Post by deguconvert on Nov 3, 2011 22:29:10 GMT
nuttz, you most certainly ARE NOT!!! Your questions have been pretty normal, and the fact is, sometimes we really need the input of others to feel confident in our decisions. You are NOT the forum idiot . . . nuff said!
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Post by davx on Nov 3, 2011 22:37:00 GMT
I describe them as mix between chinchilla and guinea pig. If I have to describe their outfit, I say they are rat sized and look a bit like a rat, but their tail isn't naked instead at its end there is a "pencil" and their ears are more round as well as their "nose". @malteser Sounds good . On which topic do the terrestrial ecologists researches? Btw. my sister is a biologist too. Actually she works in Cape Verde (Africa) as park ranger.
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madhoose
Foraging Degu
Pumpkin & Pipsqueak...
Posts: 85
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Post by madhoose on Nov 4, 2011 13:20:18 GMT
lol @ maltesers description and ROTFL at the pictures now in my head thanks to deguconvert " firm thumb on the nose to push it in".... in my head it now looks like it's been dragged through a bush backwards a few times... !!! ;D @ jbaggs.. thanks for clearing up what a cavie is... i like nuttz didn't have a clue but was to embarrassed to ask .. I was imagining something totally exotic.. So it's a bit disappointing in a way to learn it's just a wee guinea pig.. !! but at least now i can tell people that i once owned a cavie... and i will get the same response that i do when i say i have degus... :
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Post by mcavan on Nov 4, 2011 17:20:33 GMT
I live in England and have a couple of degu's. I also work in a pet & Garden shop. (Work in Garden side) But i always tend off to the animal section to see the degu's. not many people know what they are, but i have the advantage of telling them how great they make as pets and what nutrition they need etc etc.
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Post by Maravilla on Nov 4, 2011 19:06:04 GMT
Degus in Germany... well, there is no definite way to describe the popularity in the country. I would say that there are regions where they are more known than in others. You can buy them in pet shops and find them in animal shelters. There are also private persons "breeding degus". And in some regions there are already more degus than potential new homes!! There the market is already saturated. There are three associations dedicated to degus. It is quite easy to find good food and other things for degus (lots of online shops), but you have to search the Internet for good sources as pet shops actually aren't the best options. On Internet you can find lots of useful and reliable information about goos (but also completely nonsense). So, in theory, you can get informed well before buying or adopting degus. Unfortunately, lots of people still don't use this possibility. Another thing are vets. In many regions it is still very hard to find a vet who knows degus and has the equipment and experience to treat them. In bigger towns there is at least a chance that some of the vets have a clue and know how to handle them. When I have to go to my vet with one of the little ones, I always use the time to talk a little bit about nutrition and degu keeping in general. It may help the next degu owner if the vet remembers it.
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Post by Karma on Dec 4, 2011 5:38:47 GMT
Western Canada: getting better over the years. I work in a large petstore in one of the larger cities and since we have a couple of reliable breeders (the babies are awesome and super friendly) we have been able to sell them fairly consistently. We have probably sold 10-12 in the last 2 months which is more than the number of sold gerbils!!! The downside ..... we have 3 types of pellet food without molasses, very few treats and cage options. The best cages we have are living world rabbit knock down cages that are all metal. Up until now (from me doing so much research for the two I was going to bring home) - the correct size of cage we thought was a 40 gallon reptile breeding tank. About 1/3 to 1/2 of our customers come in now and say something like "oh these are the guys so and so were talking about" or explain to their friends about them. I love seeing education in the works. Now to attempt to fine decent degu cages and stock them ....
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Post by winic1 on Dec 4, 2011 7:03:18 GMT
Northeast U.S. (between New York City and Boston):
I have run into only one other American person who knows what a degu is, aside from the store where we got our first, who was there being offered for free as a favor to one of the employees who brought it in from a friend who had a litter of girls and the one boy she was giving away. And he was in an old 5 gallon fish tank with a mesh top, a 7-inch (about 18cm) wire-rung wheel, a water bottle, food bowl, and a bit of wood chips, all of which came free with him, like you were getting a complete set up already. So sad, he barely had room to walk around the stuff in this tiny tank. We had no idea what a degu was, but my daughter was so taken with him, for the rest of the day after we left the store she kept begging us, until she was finally in tears over it, and we looked them up on the internet and realized we would need a bigger cage and a companion and a safer wheel and a hut and a ..... and went and got him the next day anyway. And then found a store that could order in a companion, and got a cage and a wheel and hut and a .... .
I tell people they're a South American/Chilean ground squirrel, sort of like a mini-Chinchilla.
While not scientifically closely related, they are the equivalent of our chipmunks.
They are listed on Petfinder.com in several shelters within a hundred or so miles of me, so they are out there, and obviously misunderstood as these listings stay up for a long time, and many mention them having been treated badly and so having biting or shyness problems.
Just last week a young woman from France who arrived a couple months ago to be nanny to one of my daughter's friends came over. She spotted the cage, the degus, and hesitantly asked me (still a bit shy with her English) "These are ... Octodon?" So now I have met two people who know degus.
Most Americans don't know "cavie". Just like most don't know that "parakeets" are "budgies" or more completely, "Budgerigars" to the rest of the world, and that "parakeet" ( I believe spelled more like paraqueet often) means a big parrot type bird, not a little tiny one. Have an internet friend in Australia who flipped out at me when I wrote that I had a "big cage with 16 parakeets" as she was picturing sixteen large noisy parrots. (btw, even 16 tiny little budgies are NOISY!) Had an English lady from my church stop by a few days ago, she saw they cage across the room and started to ask so I said "they're budgies, 16 of them...." and she was most shocked that I had correctly called them budgies, not that we had 16!
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Post by malteser60 on Dec 4, 2011 12:41:40 GMT
@malteser Sounds good . On which topic do the terrestrial ecologists researches? Btw. my sister is a biologist too. Actually she works in Cape Verde (Africa) as park ranger. Hi davx, sorry just saw your message. Our terrestrial ecologists work mainly on UK wildlife, so bats, newts, badgers, and reptiles mainly. They're the main protected species here. We also have a few ornithologists, plus plant people, mosses, and fungi. Wow, your sister is a park ranger. What a brilliant job! Very jealous.
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Post by davx on Dec 4, 2011 13:47:56 GMT
Yes it was an interesting job, but food and also paymant was not so good (a common problem, many projects even want that the people pay for the stay). Actually she is back for two weeks and she intends to go to Mauritius next spring, working for a conservation and pest management project. KarmaThank you for your interesting insights. In your region degus are a new trend? But what do you think, the high demand is a cause of the fact, that degus are little known and new and that the people are curious to become acquainted with this beloved animals? And what's about degu guides and information for the customer? In the french part of Canada there is the opportunity to recommend the new degu owners to buy the degu guide from Manon Tremblay. But as I know the english guides aren't as well as this french one and I have the impression that they are prone to missleading information. How do you deal with this issue? For me it's really interesting to see the both views, the one from the degu owners perspective and the other from the pet shops or animal shelters etc.
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Post by Karma on Dec 4, 2011 20:46:49 GMT
I think it's a combination of people falling in love with the goos and starting to become more popular. The difference too in alberta is that we are "rat free" because of all the farming and agriculture so there are no pet rats allowed . Hence this is the closest animal to a pet rat that you can get here. He have our babies in one of our floor pens in the middle of the store (the only time you don't past the floor pens is when you are only getting dog food). They are tons of wood houses, wheels, toys and tubes and are a lot more active and fun to watch than the hamsters (or even rabbits most of the time). So they catch the attention of people and we have a sign (that I made hehehe) that explain about them a little (mainly just about need for a metal cage, special food/treats, need for a companion and where they are from). We are also highly customer service motivated store (largest independent store in canada) so every customer gets asked if they need a hand which normally means answering questions about goos if they are watching them. Not all our staff know a lot about the goos but there is a handful so they normally come and find someone. This is very common because of the number of different animals and birds we carry. I've been there 5 years and I still have to go ask questions or google something because I'm not sure!! Is also helps when the babies will come right out to anyone who has a treat They are fairly easy to sell then if someone is interested. We have a decent book by Barrons about Degus (although I need to reread it now with the extra information I know now from this forum and some other websites and double check). Plus we wrote our own care sheet on them we give out (which the only thing off is the minimum cage size is a bit small) to another that wants some info. Our phone is always open and at this moment I think 90% of the time we have someone who knows at least the basic care of them. Wireless internet is also a great thing to have at the customer service counter!! I have a much easier time selling a $17 (or $10-15 at the moment) degu with everything than a $180 chinchilla with similar setup. We rarely bring in chinchillas because it takes a couple of months for them to sell!!
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Post by butters on Dec 26, 2011 16:55:22 GMT
Germany, (Western part): I think Degus are popular here in compare to other countries, here it's easy to go to a vet that have knowledge about these creatures. If you ask random people about degus then there is a reasonable chance that they know them. Most pet shops have a big choice of degu products and somethimes they sell degus as well.
There are many German books about Degus and also a lot of info about them is in German on the internet (a lot of German degu sites and forums)
Holland: Not that popular yet, sometimes you really have to search for a good vet, if you talk to random people you won't find someone who know degus. You can find some products in the pet shops but not much.
And for what i've seen in Poland, they get more and more popular, a lot of product in the shops but the knowledge about degus is sometimes poor (cages too small, wrong types of food)
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Post by aya0aya on Dec 30, 2011 21:12:26 GMT
Here are not known well either. Even in pet stores don't know much about them, well they do in a pet store owned by vet clinic, but that's pretty much it.
The most common question about them is : What is that? I describe them similar as Davx. I tell them that they're a mix of chinchilla and guinea pig with a bit of squirrel attitude.
And the very next question is: should I buy a hamster,a rabbit or a degu for my kids?
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Post by shannonoflondon on Jan 4, 2012 18:06:19 GMT
I am an American ex-pat who married a UK citizen and moved to England. I have had animals all my life and while I hate pet stores selling animals, I still would look in pet stores if I happened to be walking by one. Anyway my point is in America I did see sugar gliders, hedgehogs occasionally but I have hardly seen any degus.
I happened to know a little bit about degus... I've heard their names and seen some pictures while I would research animals online... but my answer is where I'm from in America, that is to say Colorado, they are not popular at all.
Which is a sad thing because they are soooooooooooo cute!
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Post by davx on Jan 5, 2012 6:19:28 GMT
Especially for America... is perhaps the size of this mammals a problem? I mean in America the distances are different and especially out of the big cities limited space isn't probably that problem as we have here in Europe. Small mammals, reptiles or even insects are ways to deal with the limited space problem. In addition I assume that the laws here in Europe inhibit also some exotic animals, especially in Germany there is a tendence to ban so called "dangerous" animals. In detail they mean especially so called attack dogs and some kind of reptiles (snakes etc.) but in many cases they list some species, some of them in fact dangerous and demanding in handling, other ones are harmless. In other cases they lump also some mammals together to this list.
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