Does anyone have degu's?

Never kept them myself but I know they're very fast little critters! And chew like mad, anything wooden is gone within seconds! (Well, not seconds but they chew anything in sight, worse than gerbils!)

I do love them though, I say go for it!

Thanks bridebrat.

Looks like they're winging their way to us next weekend. Eek!

I have to go and google..... no idea what you're taking about!

Oh they are cute, bigger than a gerbil, nicer than a rat.......... goodluck with those!

Thanks, think we need it! Getting quite excited about our new arrivals now.

Rae I have 2 degus, had them for nearly 3 years and they are great! They chew constantly which is a bit of a pain. We keep them in a glass aquarium with a metal cage over. The have actually managed to chew some bars off the cage!!

However, they are very intelligent (ours know their names!!) so can be lots of fun too. They love to burrow so keep a thick layer of sawdust in the cage and also like shredded paper.

We feed ours on guinea pig pellets from pets at home. We dont give them the mix as it encourages selective feeding and they like the tasty stuff instead of the stuff that's good for them! They cant have anything with sugar so treats can be a bit of an issue but we give ours cucumber and lettuce and they also have the 'carrotys' treats from the naturals range, it's about all they can have because of the sugar issue and other intolerances.

WRT toys, they love to play and chew but normal small animal toys don t last 5 minutes. They will eat plastic so cant have anything made out of that as it can kill them. We actually get ours parrot toys. They're made of wood and string and ours love them, they usually take the string and make their bed fluffy. I wouldnt bother getting them a separate thing to sleep in, it will just get eaten and they love being able to make their own bed. We just put a pile of shredded paper and a pile of hay in the bottom of the tank and they make it into a really cosy bed ?

Oh and they only need cleaning out about once a fortnight...

HTH

Brilliant, thanks very much for replying jem. They do sound very similar to our gerbils in terms of care.

Interesting what you say about the borrowing though. Our gerbils are in an aquarium which is 2/3 full of sawdust as they dig so much and can destroy carboard in a matter of seconds! I think these degus are in a completely wire cage but I may be mistaken (H is talking to the owner so may have it wrong!) so will keep an eye out for that.

Again, the gerbils can't have plastic so not a huge problem there, looks like most things will be covered by having a knowledge of the gerbils.

Thanks again for getting back to me. Always handy to know someone who keeps them - may be tapping you up again when we're trying to get them to settle in!

Awww Raef - I don't have them but I love them - always going to have a look at them when I pop into PetsAtHome It's really sweet of you taking them on like that - please post a piccie of them when you have them? I'd love to see

I'm sure I can oblige there!