Old age? Or something else?

[blossombrooks]

I may be being paranoid here but I've noticed our lovely new boy Dougal is doing some strange things. Firstly I thought 'oh he's just settling in, it's all new and confusing for him' but now I dont know. We've noticed he seems quite a bit more mature than my girls, the rescue centre we got him from were told he's 2 1/2 yrs old but I wonder if it's more. He has a flattened ear, something I've seen in Chloe from Degutopia's old boy which I took to be a sign of old age. Also his sense of smell seems way off, you can put food or a treat right under his nose and get no reaction. He has no cataracts but his sight seems impaired too, he often misses where he leaps and is quite clumsy. Having never had an older degu i just need to know if this is normal or if there is a health issue I could be unaware of at play. His teeth are perfect, when he realises there is food he eats it fine. He isn't sniffling or wheezing and he's running on the wheel ok. Any thoughts anyone?
Ps he has been neutered in recent weeks before I got him but was okay'd by their vet before we took him home.

[deguconvert]

I'm not sure what to think about this, Blossombrooks. Hopefully Maravilla will catch sight of this, as she has lots of experience with older degus and may be able to tell you if what you are seeing is age related or not. Our boys are only just over four years of age . . . well, could be 4.5 years by now . . . but can't say I've seen anything like what you are describing. Except for the nose thing . . . now that our boys have developed cataracts, they see very little and don't always know when I have a treat right in front of their noses. Other times they know right away . . . but . . . it seems unpredictable when their noses will work. LOL!

I don't really associate a flattened ear with age . . . more in my mind that he was born that way. I've noticed that some degus seem to be a little more clumsy than others, so maybe he is just clumsy? Or still regaining his full strength following the surgery?

[amie]

My Elijah sounds very much the same. I first thought this was something to with age. I was told he was about 18 months when I adopted him. Personally, I'd say he seems old (which he may or may not be, there's no way to tell). I'm starting to think he is the way he is now because of a very long line of inbreeding. He's clumsy, can't jump very far, often misses jumps and doesn't really move like my other degus at all. He also looks a little different to your average degu. He looks sumpier, his tail much shorter (when he had a tail, Stefan's totally done away with most of his tail now). His coat also looks different to the others and he has a cataracts.

All in all, he is healthy though. He just needs a little extra help when it comes to the setup of the cage. Ledges need to be closer together so he can judge the jumps better and that's about it.

Personally, I think that degus who are inbred can lead normal lifes (not that it should ever be done), but when we're talking about generation after generation of inbreeding - that's something else.

[blossombrooks]

Thanks DC and Amie . I think amie you could be onto something with the inbreeding, Elijah sounds just like Dougal. He also has the slightly odd body shape (like an old lion) and when he walks I call it 'poddling' he just poddles along like a little old man, it's very endearing! I hope you're right DC and it's just clumsiness but I had so much trouble getting him to eat last night it really worried me. The food was right under his nose but he just couldn't seem to find it. I ended up giving him a different type of nugget so his nose could smell a difference and when he realised there was food he ate plenty. I love him so much already, whatever age he is he's going to be spoilt for how ever long we have him.