Strongest degu safe wood

[abirose]

Ok so I'm having to reinforce my cage with wood that the goos are allowed to chew. I covered one area with metal from a quality street tin and one with a cheap bit of thin pine I had lying around. They also managed to pull off self adhesive vinyl. So the pine has been destroyed and the goos have even been trying to bend the metal away and in frustration have started on another part of the cage Sooo I am wondering what degu safe wood is probably going to be the most durable for them to chew on (although durable and degu do not really go together!) The chewing is really damaging the structure of the cage so I'm gonna need something strong (which hopefully isn't going to break the bank) that I can replace easily and something they can't scrape their teeth into as easily.

Anyone any ideas?

[deguconvert]

Hon, can you post another picture of your cage, from far away, and then some close ups inside as well? Also your dimensions? I just really want to have a really good look and think on this. See what I can come up with. When did you make your cage, btw? Also, where do you keep it? Is it close to windows at all? Maybe discrete picts of how is it situated? Their obssesion with destroying their cage seems a little extreme, even for degus, so I just want to see if maybe it could be other influences that are disturbing them somehow and driving them to greater destruction.

[NightwishRaven999]

I agree with Faith. Pics could really help us pin point the problem and help you find a solution.

[fred]

Suitable hardwood would be beech and oak (the latter probably in the bank breaking category).

I agree with Faith and Jordan, if we could see pics, we might come up with helpful suggestions

[davx]

Whats about protecting the edges with a durable metal? Well aluminium might be too weak.
IMHO the wood mustn't be really hard, well not too soft and the surface should be smooth.
For gnawing I prefer to offer branches from shrubs and trees. Well if degus gnaw on their cage, even on metal instead of their branches, the problem might be space, cage structure or a female in a separate cage (if the degus are males). In other words the degus have a strong motivation gnawing on something they usually ignore.

[abirose]

Hi everyone,

I am going to try and upload pictures unfortunately I'll have to wait for the help of my OH who is away for a week because I don't have a camera (so I'm not ignoring you!).
The dimensions of my cage are 100(h) by100(l) by 50(w), I used the Octogan degu calculator, which says that is fine for three goos. I have two full length levels (about 30 deep) as I wanted a lot of running area and two perches. I will try and upload soon and thank you all for offering your advice.

davx I have three girls and they have loads of things available to chew already like apple sticks, willow sticks and cardboard tubes. I also order them chew toys from chinchillas2shop. The corners are protected with metal but they have scraped into the flat surface of the cage (it is made from MDF) and are chewing away at the surface.

[Bexi87]

I wouldn't worry too much about why they are chewing the cage. I think a few of us have recently had chewy goo syndrome without any obvious causes

I stapled some small mesh over the area in my cage where mine have been chewing which has seemed to stop them. They have moved onto the shelf edging now!

[davx]

In fact it isn't easy to find out the reason. Some degus tend to gnaw and scratch more intensely. However, to protect the corner with mesh is a good idea. I also thought about this, but I forgot it again.

abirose
Your dimensions sound good, but degus are individuals, some feel happy or are at least quiet with this dimensions, others probably needs more place. We cannot say excactly if it is the size or something else. But what I learnt in the last years about degus is, that space is important as well as a delicate issue: on the one hand degu behaviour alters if we can offer a cage with several squaremetres space, on the other hand this is not possible for the most of us degu owners. Thus we have to find other ways, how we can improve our degu keeping. I think dingle made good suggestions.

By the way, what's about free running? Are the degus tame enough and have you time and an appropriate space in your home?