Anyone reading this group?

[Manuela Bischoff]

Hi,

I found this newsgroup and wonder if it is still "alive".
Anyone there?

Bye
Manu

[Eric G]

i'm here, though I've not seen much activity lately.

 

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ERIC GIRONDA

"Manuela Bischoff" <man...@gmx.de> wrote in message news:db69j9$18kh$1...@ulysses.news.tiscali.de...

[Eric G]

you may also wish to join me in lurking at
alt.pets.rodents.degus

another mostly abandoned group.

How long have you had your degus?

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ERIC GIRONDA

"Manuela Bischoff" <man...@gmx.de> wrote in message
news:db69j9$18kh$1...@ulysses.news.tiscali.de...

[Manuela Bischoff]

Eric G wrote:
> you may also wish to join me in lurking at
> alt.pets.rodents.degus

No way, my provider does not offer this group on its newsserver

> How long have you had your degus?

It's just six months since Vim and Spoon moved into the cage in my
living room. One month later they got company from Yacc and Spark. So
I'm a really new degu owner. But since more than 2 years I'm reading
about degus in a german forum and other degu sites on the web.
I'm writing a diary for my degus, put its written in german, so you
better look at some pics at http://degus.manuela-b.de/alben

What about you? How many degus do you have?
Where are you from? One special issue being different in different
countries is the possibility to get proper running wheels for degus.
Here in Germany there is no real choice and for my slobs it was too
dangerous, so we (me and my boyfriend) constructed our own one.

Greetings from Germany
Manu

[Eric G]

    We live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA.  There is an abundance of toys for rodents available here in the states, so when I check out your site, I'll see if I can find any links that may assist you, realizing that shipping may be a bit excessive, but that would be up to you.  Anyway, on with our story....

 

    Two Christmas seasons ago, a friend of my wife found a cage along the roadside with 7 degus in it, all but two had frozen to death.  She took the remaining two home and kept them in a spare bedroom, because nobody she knew would take them from her.  She fed them and changed the bedding, but since she isn't a "rodent" person, didn't interact with them.  When we had to put our dog to sleep, she suggested that we take care of the "girls" for a week while she had family visiting, and if we wanted to keep them, we could. 

    I really didn't want to take this project on, but by the end of the first week, about the time they were supposed to go back to her house, we had bought them a new cage.  The one they were used to was a 10 gal fish tank with a cage top that had shelves and ramps.  with all of their stuff, they had nowhere to run and play.  We bought them a ferret cage with plastic shelves, which they promptly ate, and then they began really chewing on the pine boards I had used to replace the shelves. 

Within the next week, once we definately weren't going to be giving them back, we named the smaller one speedy, because she always seemed to be running on the exercise wheel.  The larger one, who wasn't as active, we named fluffy, again for obvious reasons. 

    They are now in the second cage since we got them.  It's also a ferret cage, but has a slide out catch pan under it, which makes cleanup easier.  I made shelves using pine boards, and they have a lot of room to run and climb around.  They still do not like being handled, but we keep trying - gently, of course.  They chewed holes in the hamster ball, so it isn't safe to let them run around outside the cage.  What I do is put a ball into the cage, and when one of them climbs in, I hold the ball with the opening up, so they can get more accustomed to being in my hands. 

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ERIC GIRONDA

"Manuela Bischoff" <man...@gmx.de> wrote in message news:dbha1q$ebh$1...@ulysses.news.tiscali.de...