Help, about to have baby degus

[Teasels Mom]

Our two "female" degus are about to become parents. What is the smallest opening a baby can fit through. We have a rat cage we can use, it's openings are 1/2" x 3". We also have a 30 gallon aquarium but don't know what to use for a lid. Any ideas

[Jade]

Oh boy. 1/2" by 1/2" is the smallest you can use for chins and degus are quite a bit smaller. You definitely need to go for the aquarium and find something to put over top. Plywood with small holes will work in the short term.

[Sassy]

Yep a aquarium is the best thing, we had our degus in the martins 35 cages and the baby can fit through the wire

[Teasels Mom]

Thanks
We moved them to the 30 gal tank last night with wire mesh over the top. Not ideal in size as they are used to much bigger but it will have to do as we certainly don't want to move her again right now.

She is absolutely huge with moving lumps showing on her sides. She looks so uncomfortable. We were almost certain they'd arrive in the night.

[pamm013]

how many babies can Degus have? poor girl.. I could imagine that would be uncomfortable like that.. are you going to take pictures when she has them???

[Sassy]

my one degu had four the other one had seven.

[Teasels Mom]

I've read that some can have up to 11. Yikes! 4 would be good but by the bulges in her sides I'd say theres at least 5-6. I will post lots of baby pictures. I took some of mom and dad yesterday but they just don't show very well how huge she is. I'll try for more when she gets up again.

We'ed like to keep one of each sex so mom and dad could be seperated yet still have a companion. We obviously weren't very good at sexing those two though as we thought they were both females. LOL Luckily they have generic names. Hocus & Pocus. Hocus is the mom.

[Catherine]

Females holes are really close together and males further apart. It should be easier now you have something to compare too.

Good Luck with the babies.

Catherine

[pamm013]

oooooh I cant wait for baby pictures then!!!
WOW!!!! up to 11 babies.. Im sure glad that chinchillas dont have that many!! hehe

[Teasels Mom]

When we got up this morning she'd had 3 babies. An hour later there were 5. We went out of town for a couple of hours and when we came back there were 5 living and 3 dead. One of them was really tiny and the other two were not quite as big as the living ones. They are so cute and Hocus doesn't mind us peeking.

[Deja]

oh my goodness! Congrats! They are soo tiny!
awww they look so cute.
Good Luck with them

[astarra]

Congratulations!!! They're adorable!!!
Hope all goes well.

[pamm013]

awwwww they are adorable!!!!! congratulations!!!

[Becki]

Congrats, they are so cute!!

[Catherine]

Awww congrats they are so cute!