Degu rescue!

[BalloonTwister]

Have just rescued 3 degus from a shed where I work. Their owner stopped paying the rent 2 months ago and when we opened it up there they were in a cage with no food or water.

My lovely boss has bought them a new cage, and I have fetched them home with me, but have no experience of Degus and am hoping for a bit of advice (or someone that knows what they are doing to give them a loving forever home!)

Anyone else keep these cute little critters?

They're a friendlier type of guinea-pig aren't they?

I don't know much about them beyond that, and that only because someone I used to know had them.

No chance of you keeping them?

Bumping the thread anyway.

There's a website called Degutopia that I found on Google. Lots of good information.
They look to me like a Chinchilla type but no idea if their care would mimic that of chinchillas.
Almost the first thing it says is don't lift by the tail unlike mice where you can grab the thick bit where it joins the rump (don't know if rats are the same) .Degus tails can shear off .

They are supposed to be cleverer than guinea-pigs (not difficult- sorry boars )and rats eek -that's one clever rodent.

It beggars belief that someone can just abandon three lovely creatures like this

It says on the website they live in groups naturally so if they are same sex you might be ok with the 3 of them together (hopefully not male/female or you'll be over-run with them)

You cannot get friendlier than.a guinea pig!

Be careful if you have dcs. I have heard that scratches from them can cause a skin reaction occasionally.

Mostly i think they are just bigger more hyper active gerbil/rat cross. Have Google there is forums out there for them. Have seen links on hammy forums

What bastard leave animals like that?

Good luck! I hope you can make them happy little 'goos' :)

I'm having a few ishoo's!

Balloon cat is overly fond of them

Dd 16mo LOVES them. Sadly in the same way that the dentist's niece in Finding Nemo loves fish.

They don't bite, and will sit on my hand in the cage, but they need a lot more handling than I have been able to give them. :(

Please, someone give them a forever home, they've been through the mill a bit (2 of them have half their tails missing) and they are so sweet.

Ours lived until they were 7. They are fab creatures and very noisy! Do not feed them anything with sugar or fat in, as they are very prone to getting diabetes.

2 of them probably have half their tails missing because they are vicious little buggers that fight like cat and dog!

you need to make sure they have plenty of tubes/wheels/plant pots etc to keep their environment interesting and also give them somewhere to hide if they do decide to fight

mine lived quite happily in a group, never bit us, and then I came down to them one morning and 3 of the 5 were dead and had been savagely attacked by each other -it was not a nice sight!

[shocked]

Thank you Derek, I had read that, so have stuck to spring greens as a 'treat'

Sausagesandwich - thats terrible! These 3 seem to be the best of friends atm, but you have me worried now!

Mine weren't vicious they all used to fall asleep on top of each other. A 'heap' of degus was what we called them

But we did have a very large cage, and they could each have a floor to themselves if they needed to get away from each other.

They would also hump each other (or piggyback as my young sons would say), and I could go into more details about the prolasped penis and ky jelly

I love going into pets at home to watch them.

We then got a kitten, who loved climbing the cage, the degus were most interested in the kitten

Would you like these ones derek? These pile up on each other too! It's a pretty big cage, so fingers crossed they won't murder one another in the night. :(

mine lived very happily, used to form degu piles all the time -I have no idea why they turned nasty, they were in a big cage, handled frequently, diet was fine, they just went crazy!

No thanks! I feel I've just got my living room back!

Jesus, I've only just stopped getting up half a dozen times in the night to check on the baby, and now I have homicidal Degu's to worry about and check on instead

If anyone does want to rehome them after Sausages experience, please feel free to pm me - they're lovely creatures, honest! ;)