Males & Spraying/Oder

[andreaS15]

I have 2 males, and then 3 females.
These are the first males I have ever met, everyone I had known who owned Degus before me always had females. My one girlfriend who bred Degus for a bit said she didn't care for males as they sprayed alot more. When I asked about it before (online) people disagreed with me, but now that I own these boys and then also girls I can say my friend was absolutly right.

Do your males spray?
In my boys cage everything is covered in spray, it's not really stinky, but trying to whipe it all down sure is a PITB, and everythign feels icky if you touch it.
Also I can pick up my boys and play with them, my hands then smell like Degu spray, while when i pick up the girls they don't.
The smell really dosn't bother me, unless of course I'm heading out somewhere forgot to wash my hands and put my stinky hand up to my face! eeewww....

The 3 girls are in a 50g aquarium, which i find stays so much cleaner, even all their toys. The boys are in a tall cage where i put cardboard covered in tinfoil around 3 sides of it to keep the mess from being on my other animals cages.
Do you think if they were also in a large aquarium they would be alot cleaner?

Now do we think mine spray more then the average because there are females on the other side of the room?
I would think that the females would act the same way trying to mark to find a date too. But they don't.

How do your males act?

[Fuzzyzandfriend]

yea, mine that just passed away did that. Everything would be all greasy and gross feeling when i touched it. Even the rat's fur. I don't know what it is though, every time i asked or researched i found nothing about the males spraying anything.

[SnoggleSnitch]

My two boys hardly ever do that. They do other things that are naughty ( ) but they only spray sometimes.

[Amethystbelle]

Mine don't spray in the cage they do it out of the cage onto the floor, thank god for laminate i say Saying that i know a lady whose degus are all female and are a lot worse, there cage needs wriping down daily as they do it up everything

Personally i think it might be because there are females present in your case as they will be able to smell them so they are marking their territories. One thing i would watch out for is if the boys are doing this and the females smell them it could bring them into season (as they only do so in the prescense of a male) and cause the boys to fight so i would keep an eye on that