Pet Profile: Pyrite & Patron

 After the first two girls came home, I never stopped doing research about degus. I found out that they came in a variety of other colors and I knew I needed MORE! I searched the internet for breeders to see what other colored degus were available. I found a breeder in Kansas that had male sand and blue colored degus and decided I would get a pair and have them shipped to us. Unfortunately, the blue I wanted was claimed before I had a chance to contact the breeder so, I decided on his brother which was a natural colored degu like the girls and an unrelated sand male. I didn't want the sand male to get lonely or sad being transported by himself and I didn't want him to have to live in a new home by himself when he came home with us.

The breeders used a new transport company and my husband and I met them about 30 minutes from our home. I'm not exactly wild about strangers showing up at my house, so we met at a Wal-Mart parking lot to collect our new boys. When we pulled up I didn't expect a pick up truck hauling a very long stock trailer. We were getting small critters, what else could these guys possible have in the trailer? The driver had gone inside to grab a bite and his passenger found our critters in the back seat for us, handed them over, then ask if we wanted to check out their other passengers. Out of curiosity my husband and I said we would love to! In the large area of the stock trailer, there were beautiful golden colored Highland cows. I had never seen them up close before, only on TV and the internet. They Were BEAUTIFUL! The fluffy floppy top knots are so sticking cute, if I could have pinched their little cheeks like a crazy old auntie, I totally would have. The guy smiled at our delight and motioned for us to follow him to the storage compartment/dressing room in the front nose of the trailer. We walked in and there were three very LARGE dog crates with adult Bob Cats lounging within. Both of our jaws dropped, they were stunning and intense to watch. The male wasn't a big fan of visitors so we took our quick peek and then exited the trailer to give him his peace back. I'm sure the passenger thought we were goof balls by the giddy school girl grins we had on our faces. 

We said our good byes and thanked him for sharing his passengers with us and headed down the road. On the way home I quickly began inspecting our new charges and trying to decide on NAMES! My husband and I bounced names back and fourth before we finally settled on Pyrite for out sand colored male and Patron for our new natural colored male.

Patron quickly became my new best friend, he seemed to take to me right away. Most days though, I affectionately call him "P". He is by far our most friendly degu and our Go To if anyone comes to the house and wants to see our degus up close or hold one. He always rushed to the front of his cage and is ready to jump into your hand the instant you call his name and open the door to the cage. He loved everything and everybody. He isn't particular about snacks, he will literally eat anything that I hand him. 

Pyrite was also pretty friendly from the day we got him and will also come right to the front of the cage to visit with whomever wants to hold him. He is a lot more picky about what he eats and we have had to really try out a bunch of things to see that he likes. Up until recently, Pyrite was our most vocal degu. If he wants attention he will tell you about it and will chirp and chip and chirp. 

The only problems we had when our newbies came home, was the fact that they could escape their cage. The width between the bars of their cage was entirely too large for youngsters. It never occurred to me that our little guys would be so little. Patron was a little older, by about a month, so he didn't fit through the bars very well at all. Pyrite on the other hand, was about 10 weeks old and just small enough to escape. We ended up modifying their cage and put chicken wire around the while thing so that we wouldn't loose our sweet new guy.

I hope you keep coming back to learn more about our degus, we have 9 total currently!

Have a great day dear followers,