Need Help

Question
The mother degu died and she only had one baby that is in good health.How do we take care of the baby now the mother is gone?

Answer
You don't give me a lot of info to go on, so here is some general info.  If the baby is really young, there may be nothing you can do.  Is the dad around?  If the baby was weaned it will be fine with him.  If he is around and it is not weaned, you will need to feed it kitten milk replacement (available at most pet stores) every couple of hours until 3 weeks old.  After that, just giving it to the baby several times during the day is fine.  The safest way to do that is take a medicine syringe or eyedropper and get some of the formula into it then let the baby lick it off...never try to squirt the milk into the baby or it could choke to death.  If it is less than a couple of weeks old and totally alone (no other degus around) feeding it every couple of hours isn't your only challenge--you'll need to keep it warm enough without getting it too hot.  I have a rice-bag microwave heat pack that I heat up and put on the outside of a glass aquarium (you can't use anything they'd chew through or pee on) as it allows ventilation but blocks draft and keeps the baby from wandering off.  As mobile as they are, they are able to slip through bars too easily.  You'll need to keep it fed and warm all through the night for the first couple of weeks of it's life, but by 3 weeks old you don't need the middle of the night stuff.  By 5 weeks of age it is totally independent, and you need to consider what you are going to do with it.  I hope before you got your mother degu you knew that they shouldn't live alone, so this one needs to live with another--just make sure it is the same gender as this one is so you don't have more babies.  

Good luck!
Carol