Tag: degus

Do you have questions about degus or their care? Please ask! I’m always happy to receive questions or write information posts but would like to know what people want me to write about.

Making a wheel

You will need:

  • cake tin (at least 12″ in diameter)
  • lazy susan turntable bearing
  • drill
  • rivet gun
  • tape measure/ruler
  • pen/pencil

Depending on how you attach the wheel to the cage you will also need:

  • cable ties

or

  • screwdriver
  • screws
  • washers
  • wood

How to make the wheel:

  1. Using a tape measure/ruler find the middle of tin on the outside, line up the lazy susan turntable bearing and mark where your holes will need to be 
  2. Find out what size rivet fits in the holes of your lazy susan turntable bearing and using a drill make holes of the appropriate size where you have marked on the tin
  3. If you are attaching the bearing from outside the tin go on the step 4, otherwise now is the time to attach the bearing to the piece of wood (this will need to be a few centimetres wider than the bearing so the wood doesn’t split when you screw in to it, but shouldn’t be wider than the wheel so that it doesn’t get chewed at).
  4. Place the rivet through the hole in the tin and the bearing and use the rivet gun to attach the two together. This takes a fair amount of force.
  5. File down any sharp edges you may have if the rivet didn’t break of smoothly and your wheel is ready to be attached to the cage, do this either with cable ties or if you have a piece of wood attached to the wheel use the screws and washers.

Reasons you might want to make your own wheel:

  • You can make sure the wheel is a suitable size
  • The wheel will have a solid base and back
  • Most commercially available wheels are made of plastic which will be chewed and need replacing

Choosing a cake tin: The tin will need to be at least 12″ in diameter so that your pets spine isn’t damaged, I went with a 13″ tin as this is the largest I could fit through the cage door. The tin should not be covered in anything such as teflon that will come off when chewed, iron or steel will rust when it gets damp (read: when it gets peed on), the tin here is anodised aluminium.

The original guide I followed used a 3″ lazy susan turntable bearing, this has to be attached to the tin from the outside which meant that it wasn’t possible to attach a piece of wood or anything to make it easier to attach to the side of the cage so these are attached with cable ties. The lazy susan turntable bearing I used this time is 6″ as I thought that this would give the wheel more stability and stop it rubbing against the side of the cage as it’s used (the other wheels have kitchen roll behind them to prevent the rubbing but this isn’t an ideal solution). The issue I have with the 6″ bearing is that it’s already loud on it’s own, I don’t know if this is an issue in general or just with the particular bearing I got.

The degus got a hazelnut each yesterday, but they had a bit of trouble getting in to them because they kept rolling away.

Daniel must have knocked his nut out of the cage because during their time out of the cage today Scott found it, ran off with it and buried it in the digging tank filled with soil.

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.

Sometimes I’m offering my degus a bit of food and they’re acting like they’re not sure if they want it so I slowly start to take it away again and they’re like no waIT I WANT THE FOOD COME BACK

Earlier this year Daniel got in a serious fight with his friends and he was removed from the group for his safety. Despite working on reintroductions for months Daniel just isn’t getting on with the others, every time things seem to be going better they get in to a serious fight, luckily the worst injuries Daniel and the others have had is some minor scratches.

Daniel is going to be living on his own permanently from now on, as much as it upsets me to make this decision I think it’s in everyone’s best interests. Daniel will be moving back in to the old cage once I’ve done some work on it (new shelves, wheel, etc). The cage has been divided in two for months and it hasn’t really been enough space for anyone but I kept hoping that the reintroductions would work out and Daniel would move back in with the others.

Although degus are social animals and should usually be kept in groups it can happen that even after years of living together happily they may need to be separated and unfortunately that’s what’s happened here. Separating Daniel permanently isn’t a decision I’ve made lightly and I wish it wasn’t necessary. Daniel seems happy on his own and he will always get plenty of attention and chin scritches from me.