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Degu Versus the Wooden Wheels

When I bought wooden exercise wheels for my 3 girls I knew I was taking a gamble. Degus love to chew wood but in the back of my mind I was hoping that they'd realize that wheel destruction meant no running. After all, they are rather intelligent little rodents.

Close up of damage


After 6 months of little to no interest in chewing the wheels I thought I was on to a winner and had the only non-destructive degus in the world. This afternoon, after a morning out walking I came home to wheel destruction.

Degu damage to Wooden Exercise Wheels

4 hours earlier they weren't particularly bad. Just some light gnawing around the edges and on the stands. Now they resemble something that's been, quite literally, blown apart by a grenade. It's like they woke up this morning and thought,
"Right, degus. We're going to start chewing these wheels and we're not going to stop until they're gone!"
It's a good job I didn't pay full price for the wheels. I'm now looking for metal substitutes. Even if I have to make them myself out of cake tins. God only knows how much wheel will be left by tomorrow morning!

Update - 26 February, 2013

One of the wheels is now completely unusable, ironically it's the second one I bought for them. They seem to have stopped with the destruction, for now, which is good but Myka is complaining and fighting over the remaining wheel.

Unusable

The reason I bought another one in the first place. Cake tins at least 12" in diameter seem to be impossible to find where I live too. Girls, girls, girls. Why do you have to be so naughty?
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Comments

  1. Berengaria19 August 2014 at 23:13

    Well Lisa, I certainly had that certain moment of deja vu after viewing your pictures because it is exactly what my girls did to their wooden wheel. I had been patting myself on the back thinking Hooray, the wheel is lasting longer than I expected, albeit slightly grubby, with a unique frilly edge until one day they must have made a corporate decision to get rid of it altogether - there was very little wood left by the end of the day !
    Unfortunately degus will be degus !

    ReplyDelete

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