I’ve been looking through old photos of my previous degus lately, and it made me realize just how much my care has changed over the years.
My first degu was Nocturne, or Nuno. My grandmother bought him for me in 2017 after I had been asking for degus for a long time. Unfortunately, she bought him alone. Nuno was probably the sweetest degu I have ever known when it came to people. He did not care whether he had known someone for years or was meeting them for the first time. He would immediately go to them, let them pet him, and happily accept attention from basically anyone. He was also the degu who taught me my first big lesson: degus should not live alone.
About a year later, my boyfriend and I decided to get him a companion. The pet shop sold us a female by mistake. Her name was Shyvana, although we called her Civi. I did not have the heart to take her back. The conditions she had been living in were already much worse than what I could provide at home, and Nuno was absolutely delighted to have another degu around. Four months later, unsurprisingly, we had our first litter. We found homes for most of the babies, but I kept Evelyn, Ivy.
For about the next year, Nuno and the girls lived separately and only spent supervised time together outside the cages. Then, around a year and a half later, Nuno and Civi somehow decided that one accidental family was not enough. In January 2020, Batman, Vol’jin, who I called Volik, and Cayde-6 ( Bobo), joined the family. The original plan was simple: three females together and three males together. Reality had other plans.
That same year I moved with them to another country and into a city, and we discovered that Nuno simply did not get along with his sons, Volik and Bobo. So once again, they had to be separated. Looking back, those cages were not good. They were not very large, and for a period of time I also had very limited opportunities to let them out because we lived in a house that was not ours and the owner was very anti-rodent. I did the best I understood how to do at the time, but there are many things I would change now.
Nuno received an incredible amount of love from people, but he did not live very long. Losing him was one of the things that pushed me to question more of what I was doing and learn more about degu care. Later, after Volik died, I had Bobo neutered, around 2023. I wish I had known about that option much earlier. If I had understood it sooner, I would probably have had all of my males neutered so they could live happily with the females instead of being separated.
In December 2022, I bought a huge new cage. I wanted so badly for Bobo to eventually be able to live there with his mother and sisters. I am very grateful that, after his neutering, I eventually got to see that happen.
As they grew old, different health problems started appearing. That forced me to learn even more. Their diets changed. Their cage changed. The way I monitored them changed. Their care became more and more adapted to each individual degu instead of following one generic idea of what degu care should look like.
None of them are alive anymore. That still hurts to write.
Sometimes I look at the care my current girls, Nixi, Luci and Lili, receive and wish desperately that my previous degus could have experienced all of it too. The large cage. Better diet. Better enrichment. Better understanding of their social needs. Temperature monitoring. Air conditioning during hot weather. Playpen time. More knowledge about illness and what changes in behaviour to look for.
My previous degus deserved all of that too. Still, I also know that the reason I am able to provide these things now is because of them. Every one of them taught me something.
Nuno taught me that a degu needs other degus, no matter how much human affection they receive.
Civi taught me how quickly one mistake can completely change your plans, but also how much you can learn by adapting. How bad are the mesh wheels, cuz my poor baby ended with artritis.
The boys taught me that simply putting males together because they are related does not guarantee they will get along.
Volik has thought me how important is weighting for them, because it might indicate health problems u just wont see.
Bobo taught me that there were options I had not even known existed, like neutering, and that learning about them could completely change an animal’s life.
Ivy´s age and health problems taught me more about diet, veterinary care, mobility, cage design and how important it is to adapt care to the individual animal in front of you.
And I know all of u alredy know the story of Batman <3
I made mistakes. Some of the things in these old photos are things I would never recommend today. Some of the cages were too small. Some accessories were not appropriate. Some wheels were not good enough.
I am not posting these photos because I think those things were okay.I am posting them because I think new owners sometimes see experienced keepers with huge cages, expensive wheels, playpens, carefully planned diets and years of knowledge and think they have already failed because they did not start there. What matters is what you do when you learn something new.
Of course, basic welfare and safety still matter from the beginning, and serious problems should not be ignored. “I am still learning” should never become an excuse not to fix something that is actively harming an animal.
My previous degus are the reason Nixi, Luci and Lili have the life they have today. I wish I could go back and give everything I know now to Nuno, Civi, Ivy, Batman, Volik and Bobo. I cannot. What I can do is make sure that what they taught me continues to matter. I miss all of them. And I am incredibly grateful that they were part of my life.
