Growing Pains...

Since about September the acronym CARA has never really been far from my lips.
Why?
Because I am 1) In reality quite sad and 2) Bex and I love our little furry creatures and want them to have the best we can offer.

This stems from an issue that comes from selling animals commercially and a lack of knowledge/education about Degus in the English speaking world.
If you have read how we came to get our girls then you will remember than initially we were going to have two, but given the Degu is a social animal and there were three in the shop we were suckered into taking all three home.

Given this is more about our experiences I shall stop at going into a rant about misinformation, but we were assured that a single 'Thickets Cage' would be enough to house the three Degu we were buying.

Standard Thickets Cage - it looks so empty and boring here!



And so it was for a while as the three little creatures grew and required more stimulation their behaviour started changing and they became more destructive and would spend there time maniacally rattling the bars and 'C Clips' of the cage and becoming agitated and if I am honest, puzzling and hard work.

Having stumbled onto Degu World for advice as to why our Degus were becoming more and more agitated we realised that there was a world of information we had previously been unaware of.
The Degu may be a fairly new animal to keep as a pet in the UK, but in mainland Europe there are several countries who are streets ahead of us in understanding how to care for the little creatures with more understanding (if you can ever truly understand a Degu!).
The advice on Degu World is largely influenced by the thinking found on the continent and as such they have come up with their own, more appropriate Cage Size recommendations and CARA thread to help advise people about the requirements of the space needed to keep a happy Degu pack of varying sizes.

With this in mind and a visit from friends looming a month away (not to mention our furry little charges acting out due to constraints) I set out to improve their housing situation by doubling the size of their cage by attaching another Thickets Cage to the top.

Double Decker



Elsewhere in this blog I will detail the process I went through in order to make this cage extension.
Whilst this has been a good way of increasing our girls CARA there are still improvements that could be made to their living space - including size.
Having a cage this large is great for the space but it means we need to lift it up and down each time to clean and with Bex having a bad back this is impractical and often messy.
Having excepted the amount of care the girls need and having accepted the amount of room we are prepared to give them I will be custom building them a new DIY wooden home and dedicating one alcove to their needs which I will be detailing once the project is underway.