In Which the Degus Get Fixed

We took the 8 (count ’em EIGHT) baby degus off to the store to get sold on to new happy loving families last week, and it was a big relief–going from 10 degus to just 2. However, we also discovered that the store where we got our degus . . . won’t be in the degu business anymore. In fact, these were the last 8 degus they were going to sell.

This was not good news.

As you know, our two degu “brothers” have already produced 14 baby degus in the space of about 1.5 years. And life was all fine and dandy while we could just sell the babies to the store and give other families the chance for some degu love. But with that avenue closed to us, we had to come up with alternate plans.

I knew right off that those plans couldn’t involve the words “more baby degus.” I already know from social network feedback that the demand for degus among my friends is quite low. (Meaning, nobody wants ’em.) So I couldn’t give them away. And selling them would require quite a bit of work, with no guarantee that I’d really be able to do it consistently. Which meant that I’d have to find something to do with the babies. Lots of babies. I couldn’t release them into the wild–they’d be dead within minutes. I couldn’t kill them, because I’m not a heartless monster.

So that left two simple options: get rid of the degus, or get one of them fixed.

We watched Lilo and Stitch as a family over the weekend. And after that movie, how in the world could I give the degus away? Ohana means family.

So it was time to cut the baby degus off at the proverbial source. We found a vet with some familiarity with the procedure, and Denisa went to take the degus in for their operation. It seems to have gone well. (For $75, it better have. The critters only cost me $30 to begin with. The good news is that we made $5 per baby degu, which means $70, total–so that offsets almost all of the procedure. It’s almost like I planned it!)

What have I learned from this experience? Simple. Next time I get a pet, I’m only getting one. Something that’s happy all on its lonesome. (Unless it can reproduce asexually. Sorry, Amoebas. No Bryce Pet status for you!)