Tobias still loved pumpkin as much now as he did 5 years ago. I remember putting him in a carved pumpkin for photos, thinking that he’d stick his head up to look around, but he said why would he do that when he’s in a room of food and busied himself eating. I hadn’t gotten a large pumpkin this year but he thoroughly enjoyed the munchkin pumpkins, eating more than the rest of the degus combined. He looked betrayed when I took the pumpkin away and told him he could have more later. Tobias was always very food motivated which made training him easier.
The blood in Tobias’ eye cleared up after a few weeks of eye drops 3 times a day but the blood in his urine came back. Despite antibiotics it didn’t clear up so he went in for investigations – x-rays and a urine sample was going to be sent off. He came round from the anaesthetic well and he was checked on frequently throughout the afternoon. I went to pick him up and when the nurse went to get him he had passed away, it had only just happened recently, there was nothing that could be done for him. It happened quickly and he didn’t suffer.
It’s come as a complete shock to all of us, if my vet had had any doubts about how he was doing he would have been kept in overnight for observation. I don’t know if his death is to do with whatever illness we were trying to get to the bottom of or if it was something like a blood clot.
In the last few months Tobias has been really cuddly. He was a wonderful study buddy – he would walk up the side of my dressing gown and settle down, easily for an hour or two, so I wasn’t able to move without disturbing him and ended up taking my text books with me to keep me occupied while Tobias cuddled. He will be missed so much. I hope he’s with his brother now.
Daniel doesn’t want to face the day today either
Mood
me: let’s take photos
degu: lol bye
Me:
Tumblr:
I think I’ve fixed all of the spacing on the FAQ posts. I have no idea why it’s affected some of the posts but not others. I can’t edit the original part of the posts I’ve already reblogged though. Sorry it was difficult to read.
Happy Gotcha Daygu!
I forget quite how much these two have grown and how their colouring has changed. I’ve been asked so many times if Zach is going to keep his white fur, but it’s actually the grey that he’s lost.
Hi, friends! A few people have requested an updated commissions post. Here is it!
Please note that prices are set on the amount of time it would take, plus supplies etc etc. If there is something you want that doesn’t fit into these categories, send me a message.
Portrait: £12
Half body: £20
Full body: £40 (+£15 extra character)
Pet sketch: £10 (this is a super quick pencil sketch of any animal, about 8cm x 8cm)
Pet portrait in paint and ink: £34 (A5 size), £42 (A4 size), £56 (full body)
(note: all small pets are done as full body pics.)
And finally!
Illustration: £100-£200
I also do full illustrations. This varies a lot based on backgrounds, characters, scenery etc, so it’s best to send a query in for a quote.
Will draw: OCs, fursonas, character art, animals, space/galaxies, ‘mild’ nsfw,
Won’t draw: mech (I’m not confident with drawing mech), anything hateful/I disagree with
Payment via paypal invoice or through etsy, deposits/layaways accepted. Picture can be shipped and/or laminated, a scanned version will be sent. Usual turnaround is 1-2 weeks, depending on queue. Please do let me know if you need it by a certain date.
(Bonus: at Christmas, I do a secret-not-secret raffle for everyone who has commissioned me over the year. So there’s a chance you might get an extra surprise in the winter.)
There’s lots of examples on my blog, or you can always ask.
Reblogs appreciated, lovelies!
I stuck all my FAQ posts in a queue thinking they were ok as they are, now I’m realising that I should have re-read them first and made sure that the information is correct. As a pet owner I’m constantly learning more about my pets, I wrote some of these posts years ago and I know more now, and in some cases I might just have got something wrong. Please feel free to add/send me comments and corrections.
Hey! The general advice that I’ve seen suggests keeping degusin groups of two – seven. I’ve got six degus, but they’re in two separate groupsso the most I have out at any time is four.
I don’t have any experience with female degus so Icouldn’t really recommend which sex you should go with. My boys are veryfriendly, the little guys more so than the big guys. Whichever sex you decide to go with make sure thatyou know how to sex degus yourself before you get them, even if you’re gettingthem from someone who seems as though they should know how to sex degus. I thinkthere are a lot of people who just take a quick look and say ‘that’s a penis,this one’s a male’ when males and females all have cones which are easily mistakenfor a penis if you don’t know about this.If you’re adopting degus and they’ve been keeping males and females togetherthere is a possibility that the females could be pregnant. Degus are pregnantfor three months but only show in the last two weeks and they have litters of 2– 10 pups.
If you’re adopting six degus I would recommend gettingthem as an existing group; introducing degus can be tricky and moving to a newhome will already be stressful for them.
I’ve recently written a post on what makes a gooddegu cage and what degus should have in their cage.The first post has a link to how to calculate what size cage you need. Most cages you can buy will be wire cageslike those that I have, there are guides around on how to build your own cage,these are usually wooden often with a wire mesh for the front or top to provideventilation. It’s more likely to be a question of whether you want to buy a cage or build one yourself.
Ideally degus would have something to dig in as theylive in burrow in the wild. You’ll need to take account of the space that wouldbe taken up by a tank when deciding what size cage you need/where to placeshelves. My guys don’t have anything for digging at the moment; I’m in theprocess of trying to find a tank that would fit in to the space available. I did get a tank for them to dig in while they were out of the cage for their run, but they’ve always been more interested in running than digging, I imagine they would pay more attention to something in their cage.
You can see a post on handling degus here. When you first get them try to give them the same food they’ve been eating and introduce what you’re intending to feed them gradually over the course of a week.
One last thing to consider is that degus areclassed as exotic pets. Do you live near a vet that would treat degus? Thefirst vet I went to said they would see degus but very clearly didn’t know athing about them and usually only treated dogs and cats.
I could keep talking for pages, so I’ll leave it here. Please feel free to get in touch ifyou have any further questions or you want any more detail on anything 🙂
Six degus is a lot of degus for a beginner two or three is the best number to start with. Degus can be prone to having spats and falling outs not to mention health issues. Acquiring that many could end up being overwhelming. Unlike rats male and female degus are similar in behavior, though males can be more prone to having bad fights during hormone season. To be honest I rarely see groups of males over 5 get along long term without the need to separate, but Ive seen it many times with females.
Reblogging for added comments. I wrote this before all of my degus fell out, these days I think I’d recommend a group of three.
Silly Degu 