Did I order too much degu food? No, I don’t think so.

The meadow hay is for eating and to go in bed boxes, the other type of hay is for Tobias, he hasn’t been eating much hay recently and I’m hoping a different type might entice him.

There are 4 different bags of dried plants as degus need a variety, in terms of weight it makes up about ¼ of their usual feed, fresh plants/herbs/vegetables are on top of that.

I used to be able to get a dried plant mix that contained artichoke but the manufacturer removed them so there are so a couple of bags of dried artichoke pieces. They’re pretty hard which is good for wearing down their teeth.

Health update

Scott: Scott has been getting regular eye infections for some time now so we got a referral to a specialist, the most likely cause is a blocked tear duct which they can’t do anything about because degus are too small so unfortunately it’s going to be a case of continue with the dreaded eye drops.

Scott did not appreciate having to drive further for the specialist and was agitated in the travel cage, he was chewing at the seat belt (he was strapped in in addition to me holding on to the cage), when I moved the seat belt he shoved his face though the cage bars and gave me possibly the worst bite I’ve had from any of them. The vet suggested something called Pet Remedy, so we’ll be trying that next time.

Jack: Jack just had a dental and is eating loads better again now, it had been about 6 months since his previous one so that’s pretty good.

Sam: Sam took advantage of Jack being a bit out of it and there was lots of mounting and Sam ended up with quite the fur ring, which I noticed because his cone wasn’t the normal shape. He’s fine though, it was removed before it could cause any problems and is otherwise in good health.

Tobias: Tobias has had blood in his eye for a week and half, he’s been to the vet a couple of times, the vet has been in contact with an exotics specialist and we’re currently waiting to hear back from an optometrist. Unfortunately the optometrist is based about 4 hours away and I’m not sure if keeping Tobias in a travel cage for probably 9-10 hours would be worth it but we’ll see what they have to say and whether there’s much they can do or if they could just guide my vet through the next steps.

Tobias has also been showing high levels of glucose in his urine recently (so he might have diabetes), and now blood which might be related to the eye and could indicate kidney disease or it could be unrelated as it is something he’s had before.

Ben and Zach: *screams internally* Puberty. I can’t wait for it to be over. Health-wise they’re ok but oh my goodness the fighting. They’re separated at the moment because they’ve been doing the scary serious fighting where they lock together in a ball. Neither of them have had lasting injuries, Zach has lost his bottom incisors twice from having bitten Ben. They’ve been reintroduced a few times and been ok for a few days but then gone back to fighting. They skip the scrapping stage. They go from agitated to ball. When the others scrap I feel safe putting my hand in-between them, but not with the pups, they also don’t seem to realise that they can give me a warning nip and go straight to biting.

Ben has a little white in his eyes, not sure if they’re cataracts, he doesn’t seem to have diabetes and can see fine. The vet said monitor it.

Mocha: Mocha is well, he’s going a bit grey but he’s still very active and hamstering well. His teeth are a little crooked, if they don’t sort themselves out he might need a dental but for the time being he’s eating well and his weight is consistent so my vet doesn’t think it’s currently worth the risk of an anaesthetic at his age.

(Mocha is a hamster, the rest are all degus)