The Degu Diaries

Not a lot has happened in the past 10 days. I've been mentally visualising the cage I want to build and I've found a great website with a day by day guide detailing how someone built their cage . In fact, I like their cage so much I may have to borrow a few ideas. While the cage seems relatively easy to build now (I hope) my newest problem is actually getting my new degus home from the pet store. I'm jumping the gun a little, considering I haven't even built the cage yet, but I just want to make sure that I can source everything I need. Where I live is pretty rubbish for just about anything. Degus are destructive and you can guarantee that I'll be given my new furbabies stuffed in one of those cardboard carry boxes. I don't have a car so the short 20 minute journey home will be made by train and knowing my luck they'll probably chew through the box in seconds. I don't particularly want to be running down the street chasing 2 over-sized gerblis! A

It has been a fair number of years since I owned any pets. My last furbabies were a boisterous bunch of 6 boy rats. The enjoyment of seeing the look on a person's face when they asked what kind of pets you have and you reply with "Rats" is priceless. I was thinking of getting more rats but I wanted something a little different and after seeing a quartet of degu at my local pet store I instantly fell in love with the little critters! degu by staflo , on Flickr Let the Housing Headache Commence! After a lot of reading, I've discovered that degus need a lot of space. My rats lived in a 6ft tall by 3 foot wide cage created from putting 2 smaller cages on top of each other. They loved it. Why don't I use it for the degus? Here's the headache… 1. Made of the wrong materials While the majority of the cage is made from wire. The base, floors, ramps, and shelves of my old rat cage are made from plastic. While rats have a need to chew and gnaw as much as deg