Understand what this degu has lost
Degus are intensely social, vocal animals who sleep in piles, groom each other, and communicate through the day with chirps and chatter. An elderly degu whose companion of many years has died has lost its sleeping partner, its grooming partner, and the animal whose presence made the cage feel safe. A quieter cage, more hiding, and less interest in food in the days that follow are a recognisable response, not stubbornness.
Keep the cage, wheel, sand bath, and feeding places exactly where they were. An older degu navigates partly by habit and scent, and rearranging the home while it is bereaved removes the landmarks it relies on. Spend more time near the cage yourself, talking and offering food from your hand, while accepting that human company softens loneliness for a degu without truly replacing another degu's round-the-clock presence.
Measure eating instead of hoping it is happening
With a single degu left, food disappearance is easier to judge, so use that clarity. Degus need constant access to good hay, which should be the bulk of intake, plus their usual measured degu food and safe forage, kept low in sugar because degus are prone to blood-sugar problems and sugary treats are a poor way to tempt appetite. Note each day whether the hay level has genuinely dropped, whether the food bowl was touched, and whether droppings look normal in size and number.
Weigh weekly in the same small container on kitchen scales and record the figure. In an elderly degu, falling weight plus reduced eating can point beyond grief to overgrown or painful teeth, which are common in older degus and make hay chewing hard, or to other age-related illness. If eating stays low beyond a few days, weight falls, droppings shrink, or it stops using its wheel and sand bath entirely, book an exotic-animal veterinarian rather than attributing everything to mourning.
Tempt appetite in degu-safe ways
Offer freshness and variety inside the diet it already knows: a new handful of hay several times a day so the scent stays lively, familiar dried herbs and forage mixed through the hay pile so finding food becomes gentle activity, and a favourite safe vegetable piece offered by hand at the times it was most active with its companion. Keep water checked twice daily, in the bottle it knows, and make sure hay and food sit where it can reach them without climbing if its joints have stiffened with age.
Avoid the well-meant mistakes: sugary fruit, sticky treats, or a sudden rich new food may be eaten eagerly once and then cause gut upset and a worse appetite, and they work against the careful low-sugar diet an elderly degu needs. Consistency, measured intake, and your presence at feeding times do more than novelty.
Decide about companionship with its age in mind
A younger degu would almost always be pointed toward a new companion after a loss. For an elderly one the judgement is finer: introductions are stressful, bonding can fail, and its remaining time and health matter to the decision. Talk it through with a degu-experienced rescue or veterinarian, weighing how it is coping week by week. Some elderly degus rally with intensive human company and routine; a still-active one who keeps calling and searching may genuinely need degu company again.
While you watch and decide, KinsLe's Care Teams lets you assign this degu's morning hay check, evening food-and-droppings check and weekly weigh-in to named helpers, each marked complete with a timestamp, so its eating is tracked every single day of the grieving period.