Tag: degu care

What do you feed your degus? I can’t find any good foods that don’t lack one thing or another..Also, what do you use for treats when you are teaching them stuff? (sorry you’re pretty much the only degu blog I can find so uh that’s why I asked)

Hi! I feed my degus a mix of nuggets, seeds, dried and fresh plants/veg. I live in the UK and use the degu nuggets sold by Pets at Home,these make up about half of their regular food. In the wild seeds make up up to 60% of their diet so the other half of their regular food is a mix of seeds,flaked oats and dried plants. Degutopia has a good overview with a bit more information than I have here.

I feed my degus twice a day, once in the cage where all of their food is spread out so they have to forage for it and once when they’re out for their run where I hand feed them the nuggets and then spread out the seeds in the cage afterwards. I use the hand feeding as a chance to handle them, to reinforce a positive connection with me and also to train them.

I also give them each a pea flake and corn flake (not to be confused with the breakfast cereal!). The pea flakes come in handy if I need to check an injury or something as the flakes are quite big and the degus need to use both paws to eat it so it helps to keep them still.

I also give my degus fresh herbs and vegetables several times a week. Some vegetables should be fed less regularly due to their higher sugar content and the degus’ predisposition to diabetes.

Other treats I use include puffed rice which can be fed regularly and can be found in health food shops or the free from section in the supermarket, it’s sold as a cereal, just make sure you get the plain one. I can only speak for the UK, I don’t know how common it is in other countries. Occasional treats (1-2 a few times a week) include pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds. Rare treats (once a month) include nuts, I usually give my degus a hazelnut. If you give them the nut still in the shell it provides them with a challenge to get in to it (especially with nuts which roll away easily) and it wears down their teeth. They also get occasional dried rosehips which are high in vitamin C but should only be fed at most one a week.

If I want to give the degus something new I will google for ‘degu safe [insert food]’ (this is literally half my search history)and I will cross-reference three different sources to make sure that it’s definitely safe. This may be overkill but I’d always rather be safe than sorry. Even though some lists of degu safe foods include fruits I would personally never feed my degus any fruit because of the sugar content.

Degus should also have constant access to hay, this will help to wear down their teeth and provide fibre. Lack of hay can lead to overgrown teeth, diarrhoea and digestion problems. Given the wording of your question I’m sure you know this but there may be people who are thinking about getting degus who might use this answer as a guide so I want to cover everything.

There are people who feed their degus a diet of whole plants and seeds as this is closer to what degus would eat in the wild,I don’t find it very practical but it may be something you want to look in to, 

Please don’t apologise, I love getting questions! (Although it is a shame that I’m the only degu blog) Please feel free to get in touch if you have any more questions or if you want to let me know what your degus make of their new treats.

I’ve probably given you more information than you were after here but once I start talking about degus I find it difficult to stop.

Important reminder

Please be careful what you put in the cage with your rodents and consider whether there could be any threads they can get tangled in as they chew it.

Daniel recently got his paw caught, I didn’t immediately notice and by the time I saw it his paw was swollen to four times it’s usual size. If it had been caught any longer/tighter he could have lost his paw.

Please be really careful with what you give your pets to play with and regularly check toys for damage.

Hey there! I think about getting degus. Do you know anything about recommended group sizes? (I’m thinking about adopting 6 degus) Guys or girls? What about the cage size? Type of cage? Do they need something to burrow? If so, how deep? Etc Thank you!

Hey! The general advice that I’ve seen suggests keeping degus in groups of two – seven. I’ve got six degus, but they’re in two separate groups so the most I have out at any time is four.

I don’t have any experience with female degus so I couldn’t really recommend which sex you should go with. My boys are very friendly, the little guys more so than the big guys. Whichever sex you decide to go with make sure that you know how to sex degus yourself before you get them, even if you’re getting them from someone who seems as though they should know how to sex degus. I think there 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 mistaken for a penis if you don’t know about this. If you’re adopting degus and they’ve been keeping males and females together there is a possibility that the females could be pregnant. Degus are pregnant for 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 getting them as an existing group; introducing degus can be tricky and moving to a new home will already be stressful for them.

I’ve recently written a post on what makes a good degu 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 cages like 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 provide ventilation. 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 they live in burrow in the wild. You’ll need to take account of the space that would be taken up by a tank when deciding what size cage you need/where to place shelves. My guys don’t have anything for digging at the moment; I’m in the process 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 are classed as exotic pets. Do you live near a vet that would treat degus? The first vet I went to said they would see degus but very clearly didn’t know a thing 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 if you have any further questions or you want any more detail on anything 🙂

What should degus have in their cage?

This continues on from my post about what makes a good degu cage.

A degu cage requires:

  • Solid floors
  • Two or three full levels
  • Hiding places
  • Bed
  • Wheel

 Also required:

  • Dust/sand bath
  • Digging

There should be one more hiding places than you have degus so that they can always have somewhere to hide. Having more hiding places will reduce fighting as they will be able to hide when they want to and won’t feel the need to defend their spot.

There are multiple options for their bed: you could go with a wooden bed box, a hammock or a plant pot.  Any enclosed space in which they can feel safe would be suitable. Your degus may have a preference, for example when we first got the little guys we gave them a bed box, but since we gave them a hammock they’ve taken to sleeping there in warmer weather. If using anything that can be chewed this will need to be inspected for damage and repaired or replaced as required. The little guys have chewed through the strap of the hammock before, which gave them a shock when the hammock suddenly moved.

The degus should always have access to a wheel. This should be at least 12 inches in diameter as a minimum as anything smaller can cause damage to their spines. Possible materials for the wheel are metal, plastic and wood. The wheel should be solid in order to avoid injury to paws and tails. I wasn’t able to find a solid metal wheel with a large enough diameter so I made a wheel using a cake tin, lazy susan bearing and rivet gun using this guide.

Both of my sets of degus have an upright wheel in their cage, the little guys also have a flying saucer wheel. 

In order to clean themselves degus require a sand or dust bath – they should not be washed with water unless there are specific circumstances that require it, such as a bad reaction to a topical medicine. In the rare cases where a degu does need to be washed with water something such as a gentle baby shampoo can be used.

Either sand or dust can be used, my guys started off with sand baths and when later presented with the option to choose between sand and dust the vote for dust was unanimous.  As the dust is finer it can work it’s way through the fur to the skin better and perhaps does  a slightly better job of cleaning, however it also makes quite a mess, even with an enclosed bath, and so long as they have a sand or dust bath I wouldn’t worry too much about which one they are given.

It is recommended that the sand/dust bath is not left in the cage permanently as the degus will begin to use it as a toilet. The bath could be put in the cage for 20 – 30 minutes a day, or the degus could have access to it when they’re out for a run. Personally I leave the dust bath out so that they can have a bath while they’re out for a run if they want to, which they don’t always. A bath every two – three days would be sufficient, if they bathe too frequently this can cause their skin to dry out.

It is possible to toilet train degus, so a bowl with a little sand could be left in the cage to be used as a toilet.

In the wild degus live in burrows and where possible they should be provided with the opportunity to dig. This is difficult to incorporate in most store bought degus cages, it could be done more easily if you were building your own cage, however this is time consuming and impractical for most people. If there would still be enough running space in the cage you could provide a small tank or plant pot in which the degus could dig, although finding one large enough for the degus to be able to dig in properly might then encounter the issue that it won’t fit through the door of the cage. I’ve tried to provide a tank in which my guys could dig while they were out for their run, however they were always more interested in running around than digging.

Other things my guys have in their cages include hammocks, logs, branches, tubes and tunnels.