The Degu Diaries

This morning I fed my goos around 9:15am like every morning. I filled their food bowls, gave them some fresh water and hay, and replaced their toilet roll. Yes, you read write. Thankfully they aren't suffering from some kind of degu toilet trouble. They just like to play with it.

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 ...

Myka Degu eating the Finacard As it turns out, my degus aren't allergic to wood shavings after all. Shortly after I got them I had to change to Finacard because I thought it was the wood shavings making them sneeze. Coincidently the sneezing stopped when I changed the bedding.

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.

Every time I open the cage door Myka Degu takes a bite sized chunk out of the edge of the MDF. It's a little bit of an oversight on my part as I didn't think It would need protecting as they can only get at the edge when the door is open. I've left repairing it for as long as possible but the tools had to come out today as it's too bad to ignore any longer. I actually watched her pull a piece off with the door shut!

When I first got my degus they were tiny little things. All three of them could quite easily dust bathe together in a large plastic sweet jar. Almost 4 months on and they've grown so large that they don't all fit in their makeshift bathhouse any more. Technically they still fit but they can't comfortably roll about and do what degus do.

Today, for some reason, the girls have been rather noisy and domineering. The smallest, who is affectionately called Mini Sh*t because of the way she teases the others, has spent all day trying to mount the other 2 in an attempt to be alpha degu. Large, yes I know I still don't have proper names yet, has spent most of the day shouting about nothing and Medium couldn't really care less.

This degu likes playtime and this degu likes playtime, but who likes it more? There's only one way to find out… FIGHT!