EeeeK! What did my degu do?

[DeguCrazy]

I placed my two six-week old degus in an unscented-unclaimed cleaned aquarium. Then, I placed my 4 month old degu in with them. Don't fret...I supervised them like a hawk. Age may be between them but they are all 3 sisters. Q: Could the older degu recognize the scent of Mom off the younger degus? 5 hours past. The main observation was that the older degu wants an age-equivalent friend, not to be a baby-sitter. Peace still plentiful, mind you 5 hours had past with the my strictest supervisory skills, I had to visit the facilities! I was only gone 30 seconds...then, a baby degu began to shriek and scream! ( I would say that it scared the pants off of me but,... ) I ran to them as quickly as I could in 10 feet. I chased the older degu away from baby. No blood..Thank God. No limping..Thanx again. No broken skin..great. There were two wet lines on baby's back, near rump running along both sides of her spine. It wasn't water nor blood, nor any apparent harm other than fright. Her hair in these areas remained sticky, like glue. I had to fluff her hair with a towel to make it look normal...Q: What did my degu do to my baby? Needless to say, the 4 month old degu is in her own home and alone she may be, but she seems to be liking this arrangement.

[Amethystbelle]

Personally i would have left it a lot longer before introducing them as degu's can be funny things after being alone for a while and introducing them can take time and patience. Your older degu has bonded with you and for a start might see the babies as a threat to her position with you. Degu's in general tend to prefer younger degu's so its always easier to introduce a younger (baby degu) to an exisiting adult. If they was going to fight they would have done it in the first few hours and as you didn't see what went on that there can be no conclusions drawn from it. I would say your older degu probably just went for a nosey at the baby to check her out which probably scared her as fighting tends to be a lot more rough and fur usually ends up flying. I'm not sure what the sticky substance could be but one suggestion could be urine as thats pretty sticky. I would suggest you try some of the methods i mentioned before in introducing them, the scenting technique so they smell the same is one method to hopefully ensure successful introductions as it means they all smell the same and they don't see each other a being for different gangs so to speak. Degu's are very social and its very unusual to find an anti social one, if after trying the introduction proceedure a few more times and its not working then i would say its best to leave it and keep the older one alone but i would definately try again as sometimes it takes a little time but you can get there