Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Our Zoo- Meet the Degus

As many of you already know, we have quite the zoo at our home.  Our animal count includes one rabbit, one guinea pig, two parakeets, and eight degus.  Most people don't know what degus are (they're technically exotic, being a Chilean squirrel, but they really just look like a rat-sized gerbil), but they are becoming more and more popular in the US.

(Our degu pups!  Three years ago, two of our females had litters within 12 hours of each other, so we ended up with 13 adorable little pups.  We found loving homes for 7 of them, and kept 6.)

 
(This is our oldest degu named Helga.  She is turning 5 years old this month!)
 
When we first got out degus, we knew that they made some noises but were unaware of how long they have the capability to chirp for!  The other day, one of our little girls chirped for nearly 30 minutes.  The best way I can describe her chirping is to compare them to hiccups.  She wasn't alarmed or scared of anything, and wasn't warning her fellow degus, but she continued to chirp for a really long time and go about her daily business (i.e., chirped while eating, running on the wheel, grooming her sisters, etc.).  I was able to get a bit of it on video for those who have never experienced the noises that degus make:

2 comments:

  1. OMG they're so cute! How did you get them to line up so neatly?! Do they smell/stink and how do I get one of those?????

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  2. The picture of the pups was a lucky shot! I just happened to be walking in the room when I looked and they were all cuddling in a line. As with other rodents, you need to clean their cages about 1x/week, otherwise the cage gets smelly (but the degus themselves do NOT have any sort of odor). We got ours from Twin Cities Reptile off of University Ave. in St. Paul (over by Memorial Blood Center!).

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