Degu Versus the Spot Clean

from left to right: Claudia, Mrs F and Myka

I've just finished doing a spot clean of my girls' cage. This is them chilling before I went in and destroyed their home. As you can imagine it's not quite so peaceful now. Claudia hates cleaning days with a vengeance. I'm going to have to catch her on camera one day because her antics are hilarious albeit a little painful for me.

For some reason they like to go toilet in front of their 2 wheels so it's just a case of scooping up the soiled bedding and replacing it, right? Wrong! Claudia likes to make it as difficult as possible. The first thing she does is roll on the bare shelves as if she was taking a dust bath while I'm trying to put fresh bedding in. Once she's bored of that she tries to either climb in the bag full of dirty bedding, or try and pull it back in the cage.

Degu nest made from grass bowl

Once the toilet areas are done I move on to the dreaded nest. They've got various potential nest sites in the cage but they like an overturned grass bowl buried under a mix of straw and hay for night time snoozing. As soon as I make a move to test for wetness, Claudia is down their like a shot trying to fight with my hand. She wags her tail, barks, karate kicks, and nips my hand, and she doesn't stop until I've finished. Crazy Goo!

Degus sleeping in their wood cabin

Once the cage door closes all becomes peaceful again until I do another spot clean in 3-4 days. At the minute, Claudia is foraging for the food that is no longer there as it was in the toilet area, and the other two are fast asleep in the wood cabin. If only they'd stay asleep while I cleaned.

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