Girls fighting over dominance 

[blossombrooks]

Help please! I've had the girls from very young they're about 20 months old now. Recently I added Dougal to the mix and all has gone well. Pepper has always been the unquestioned dominant and that hadn't changed until about two days ago. Daisy refuses to submit to pepper now and attacks her whenever they're near each other. The noise is horrific!!!!  I cant say they've hurt each other yet but I know there will be an almighty fight soon, the squawking is terrible. I cleaned them out yesterday and was very careful to put lots of dirty bedding back but it still seems to have escalated things. The girls have never ever fought like this before, they've always been very close. What are the chances of them kissing and making up?? I'm not prepared to separate them, I feel it can cause more harm than good but if they hurt each other I may have to reconsider. Im so upset they're fighting like this. 

[chelseaash]

Has Dougal been neutered? Maybe's she's pregnant and a little bit territoral, just a thought.
Hope they sort their differences out

[blossombrooks]

No Dougal has been neutered thank goodness!! Lol, I couldn't cope with babies right now. They've all snuggled up in bed together so I'm hoping it's not that serious. Daisy is so tiny and I just don't want to see them hurt each other, we just got back on an even keel! Sigh. Degus. 

[Ady]

Hi Blossombrooks,
how are the girls? Have they made up?

[scoobos]

I'm a novice degu owner, only having had mine for a year.

But from my horrific experience (eyelids bitten through and broken, fractured bones and lots of blood) - let them fight it out as much as you can put up with, even a little blood is ok as long as they are not locked in a ball for a couple of seconds.

I intervened and my breeder and vet think that I made the injuries much worse than they would have been if I just let them fight it out.

Again, just my 2 cents and just from my personal experience.

[malteser60]

Mine have had some pretty heavy fights, where I've been on the verge of separating them, but so far I haven't as I believe they need to sort things out. One thing I have found that has helped is to make sure they have loads of food (in case you measure out the food) - this has reduced any fighting over food. Also I doubled the amount of things to do in the cage. Lots more foraging activities for them, etc.

The other issue can be that even though Dougal is netured it might be causing more 'active' behaviour when in heat. So, for example, Nutmeg and Cinammon (the older girls and sisters) have always been very close, with very little show of dominance between them. Then I introduced two 6 week old girls and as you would expect there were shows of dominance between the old set and new set. However what I did not except was fighting between Nutmeg and Cinammon. Nutmeg would harass Cinammon to the point that cinammon would snap back at Nutmeg, which would normally draw some blood. However the one thing I noticed is that it seemed to happen on a cycle. It seemed like Nutmeg felt she had to show her dominance even more and was more agerssive about it. The other interesting part of it is that Cinammon is the third degu down the hierarchy. Willow and Nutmeg are the key degus vying for dominance, and Poppy is such a sweetheart that she is mostly ignored. So most of the fighting was between Nutmeg and Cinammon, not between Willow and Nutmeg, even though it was clear that Willow was clearing showing dominant traits. (Basically Cinammon lets herself be mounted by both Willow and Nutmeg, except when Nutmeg gets over aggressive).

I wonder if Pepper now feels she needs to assert her dominance even more now that there is a third member in the cage, like her confidence in being dominant is being tested? Also see if it happens in a cylce (i.e. being on heat).

I wouldn't separate them as yet unless you feel that some serious injury is going to occur.

[blossombrooks]

Oh my gosh I'm so sorry everyone!! I didn't see people had still been adding to the thread, got lots going on at the moment. 
The girls are sort of ok but the position of top goo now seems to belong to Daisy. Pepper gets pretty miserable looking sometimes but I'm making sure she's not left out and I make a fuss of her. Both girls are still boss of Dougal which doesn't bother him but daisy will allow Dougal to mate with her unlike Pepper. This seems key to the dominance struggle, it's almost as though by mating daisy has gained confidence and sees pepper as weaker because she won't! Pepper is still trying to reassert herself but actually no blood had been drawn and it's mostly vocal aggression and chasing. I think for now unless Pep really pushes Daisy she's not gonna be top dog for a while. I wouldn't separate them anyway, introducing Dougal taught me to grin and bear the fighting as it's for the best sometimes. They are for the most part a happy, well integrated group. They sleep altogether and play quite a lot which is lovely, daisy has gained a little weight which is good as she's always been tiny. I'm still really happy I got Dougal, I love him to bits and even though it's made things 'interesting' between my beautiful girls I think they prefer a man around the house .