Woke up to a Sneezing Degu

I am hoping that the sneezing one of my degus has seemingly developed overnight is an allergy to the wood shaving. They have all been sneezing a little here and there but it seems worse in one of them. She keeps grabbing her nose as if something is irritating it.

I must admit that when I first filled the cage the wood shavings affected my own nose something rotten so it's hardly a surprise if this is an allergy. My local pet store doesn't have any Carefresh animal bedding or alternative dust free recycled substrate I can use so until I can get down to Pets at Home I have temporarily filled the cage with straw and hay. I may continue with the straw, as they seem to love hiding in it, and use a small amount of absorbent material beneath it to help with soaking up the pee.

She seems happy enough in herself but I will keep an eye on her just in case.

UPDATE August 25, 2012 — Both the straw and hay were considerably dusty, which I didn't realise, but I have since cleaned them out again with hay that has been shook first. They still have sneezing but the worst one doesn't seem as bad. She sounded very congested but it seems to have eased a little.

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The Big Degu Cage Build - Part Ten

It's almost 7PM and I'm not finished. At 5:30PM, while hanging the doors, I realized that there were no more screws of the correct size left and the shop would be shut before I got there. So I have only the top doors hung. Before bed I'm going to finish the inside by adding branches, bridges, ramps, ladders and other accessories. Then I'll fill it with wood shavings and hay ready for my new family members. Tomorrow I'll be outside waiting for Wilkinsons to open so I can get some more screws before I go to the pet store and my dad will kindly hang the remaining doors while I'm out. Hopefully they won't have sold out of degus before I get to the pet store.

Degu Home Decor

The girls have settled down a little since I got them on Friday so while they were snoozing earlier this morning I took the opportunity to take some photos of their degu home decor. Bottom Section - Grass Hammock If you've read some of my Cage Build Posts you'll know that the cage is built in 2 parts, a bottom & top section, for easier moveability. The bottom floor of the bottom section is the digging pit. My aim is to make this as natural looking as possible. It is filled with around 15cm of wood shavings and some hay. I've used horse wood shavings as the shavings are large and allows the degus to burrow when mixed with the hay. Underground Hideout They have an underground area which is a hay tunnel sunk down in to the wood shavings. If you can't find one of the girls the first place to look is here because they love playing in it. You can also see a few willow branches. I got a bundle of 20 of these from B&Q for £6.99. They're about 50cm long a

The Big Degu Cage Build - Part Nine

I only have one day left to try and get my cage complete if I want to get my degus on Friday. My helper (brother) has urgent work to do for clients so I've been left on my own to finish it off. Shelf covered with ceramic tiles to help keep degus cool Despite being on my own I got quite a lot done today. I made a chiller shelf from an old pine shelf, timber offcuts and a few ceramic floor tiles. This will help keep the degus cool as the room they will be in is a few degrees warmer than the rest of the house. I also managed to lightly sand and varnish the interior one last time. This will help protect from anything that might get on the walls and it'll be wipe clean. The outside of the cage is also a lovely shade of 'sand' and purple to match the room. Vinyl tiles on shelf to help protect MDF from degu pee I also managed to to lay all of my vinyl tiles on the base and shelves but annoyingly I'm 2 tiles short so I'm going to have to buy some more of the

The Degu Diaries

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