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New addition to the family

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Eric G

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Sep 28, 2005, 10:18:25 PM9/28/05
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We just added a pair of females to the family. They join the pair we have
had for about a year, so they are about 16 months newer than our first pair.
We hope to be able to keep them as social (holdable) as they are now, with
the intention of eventually being able to hold the original pair. Has
anyone had success with this kind of bonding in previously non handled
degus?

--
ERIC GIRONDA


Manuela Bischoff

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Sep 30, 2005, 7:50:31 PM9/30/05
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Hello Eric,

<I think your are talking about your degus coming to your hand, being
trusting to you and so on :-) "to hold" seems a little bit improper to
me when talking about theses fidgety animals - always running and
jumping, curiously snooping>

I never brought together that kind of different degus (related to their
confidingness), but my two younger ones were a little bit chary when
they joined my older ones. But as curious as they are, they soon copied
the behaviour of my older ones coming to my hand.
So perhaps the best way is to deal with the social ones hoping that the
others will look at what they are doing. If you give them something to
eat outoff your hand they others will even look more curious at what is
going on there. And perhaps they dare to come to you after some time, too.

Furthermore I realized that my degus like to come to my shoulder rather
than to my hand. So I let them climb and run on me :-) they really like it.

Perhaps that helps.

Greetings
Manu

Eric G

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Sep 30, 2005, 11:53:47 PM9/30/05
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Yes, that's what I was talking about. Being able to have them come and
climb. But I feel that the only safe way for them to be able to be outside
the cage is to have enough trust in us to be able to handle them back into
the cage if they were to get "loose" about the house. The new pair are
currently in the original cage that we had, right next to the cage housing
the older ones. We allowed them into the big cage ( brand name: Marshall,
model: Mansion ) with the original pair for a short visit, and they got
along well, showing submissive behavior, but not allowing themselves to be
completely bullied. The problem with the big cage is that the openings are
about 1 inch by 6 inches, it is a cage designed for Ferrets, and until they
are big enough not to squeeze through the bars, I am encasing the whole
thing in a metal mesh to reduce the size of the gaps. Till they grow, it
will unfortunately look horrid, but that is the only choice I have.

It's good to see that there are others who surf this board.

BTW, we are from the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania region of the USA, where do
you live?
--
ERIC GIRONDA


"Manuela Bischoff" <man...@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:dhkj01$2je0$1...@ulysses.news.tiscali.de...

Eric G

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Nov 9, 2005, 7:40:21 PM11/9/05
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An update.
 
The new girls, both of which had been handled daily at the petshop, have distinct differences when it comes to being handled.  The one makes a game of "chase me" before allowing herself to be caught, handling is no problem, but doesn't like to be out of the cage for long.  the other one seems to think that having any human body part nearby indicates that it is time to sharpen her teeth...on said human body part.  (( side note - her teeth are very sharp, and her jaw expands quite largely. )) 
 
On the brighter side, the two girls we've had for a while are now allowing us to pick them up, however they are adapting very slowly to the concept.  They really don't like it, but seem to tolerate it for our benefit.
--
ERIC GIRONDA
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