Old degus fighting

[cjb]

Hi - I haven't been on this forum for years but thought I may be able to get some advice. We bought 4 male degus about 7 years ago. They always had arguments and sometimes we've felt the need to intervene. Goodness knows what they get up to when no-one is here! I see from reading a few comments here that this is a common problem with males. A few years ago the biggest one broke his leg (presumably from fighting) - he was separated for a while, made a full recovery and was re-introduced. Despite some arguing, they have never drawn blood and at the end of the day they always snuggle up together. In the last 18 months two of the degus have died and recently the remaining 2 have been fighting continuously. The biggest one (who I think is the one who always starts it) had a big raw patch on his shoulder which just wasn't healing because they kept fighting. We have had to separate them and they seem ok on their own. I let them out together every day and the small one really doesn't seem interested the big one, but the big one hassles the little one and they end up bickering, at which point I put them back in separate cages. It seems so sad that they have to end their lives like this. I thought degus shouldn't really live alone but it seems ours will spend their remaining time in solitary confinement. The big ones shoulder is better now and I am thinking of putting them back together. Does anyone think there is hope of a reconciliation? Advice gratefully received.

[Amethystbelle]

I have experienced that myself in the past with older degus especially when something has changed such as death of another degu it seems to change the status quo. Personally from what you have said i would probably leave them seperate as you mention they start to bicker once they are together again. I had to do that myself with the first two degus i had and they lived happily on their own next to each other till one of them passed away. Both were a lot happier and less stressed by living seperate.

[cjb]

Thanks for the reply. That is helpful to know. We keep their cages close together so they can "talk" to one another! I suppose, I'll have to think about getting another wheel, as the smaller one, which is in an old hamster cage at present, doesn't have many luxury facilities like the bigger one! I put the bigger degu (Sid) in the smaller cage and he went beserk and trashed everything! The hamster cage is quite a large one and plenty big enough for one degu. Sadly, we never really knew the individual names of the other degus because they all looked the same! They all had names originally but we never knew which one was which! We are now left with Sid (who we have always known because he was always the fattest and the bossiest) and either Truffle, Bingo or Quincey. They were variously known as "the small one" and "one of the medium ones". Perhaps it's time he finally had a proper name!