Degus hide discomfort for as long as they can, so diet trouble rarely arrives as one dramatic event. It builds quietly out of two well-known degu vulnerabilities: a body that handles sugar poorly, and teeth that never stop growing and depend on fibre-rich chewing to stay worn and aligned. When the daily ration drifts toward sweet mixes, dried fruit treats and too little hay, the first evidence is usually behavioural rather than obvious illness, which is why owners who know the pattern spot it weeks before owners who wait for a crisis.
Reading the Mouth Signs
Mouth trouble changes how a degu handles food before it changes how he looks. He may carry a piece to a corner and abandon it, work one side of the jaw, or let half-chewed fragments fall from his lips — owners often find small, damp piles of rejected food near the bowl. Sorting is another clue: a degu who once ate everything now flicks through the mix and takes only the soft pieces. A persistently wet, stained chin and drooling, described plainly, point the same way, as drooling in a degu is never a normal quirk. If he lets you look during a calm handling session, front teeth that appear long, uneven, slanted or broken deserve a mention to the vet; teeth you cannot see, including the cheek teeth, can still be the real problem, which is why this stays an observation to report rather than a verdict you reach at home.
What the Droppings, Coat and Scales Add
A degu gut built for fibre answers a poor ration in the litter tray. Droppings that shrink, dwindle in number across the day, or turn irregular tell you throughput has changed, and they are easy to miss in a group cage unless you watch one animal at a time. Weighing weekly, in grams, on the same scales turns vague worry into a trend: a steady slide matters more than one odd reading. Coat and energy complete the picture — a coat that looks rough or thin, a degu who sleeps through his usual active spells, or one who has stopped using the wheel is spending less of himself on the day, and that change belongs in the same note as the mouth signs.
The Sugar Side of the Same Mistakes
Degus are unusually sugar-sensitive, and sweet feeding does not only threaten teeth and gut. A degu drinking noticeably more, flooding the bedding with urine, or developing cloudy-looking eyes may be showing the wider cost of a sugary ration, and vets who treat degus take that cluster seriously because this species is prone to diet-related diabetes. None of these signs lets you name the condition yourself, and none is treated by guessing at home. Their job is narrower and more useful: they tell you the appointment should be with a vet who knows exotic species, and they give that vet a dated pattern instead of a worried summary.
Building the Note an Exotic Vet Can Use
Write the record the way the vet will read it, with the same fields every time: date, morning weight in grams, foods offered that day, droppings seen, chin and drinking notes. A real week might read: Monday, 214 grams, hay refused after breakfast, droppings about half the usual number, chin wet by evening, water bottle down a third more than normal. Alongside the log, list the actual diet honestly — the brand-free facts that matter are the ingredients: how much hay is genuinely eaten, whether the mix contains molasses, peas or maize, and how often sweet treats such as raisins or banana chips appear. Photograph the chin and the rejected food piles if he tolerates it. Do not attempt a sudden corrective overhaul while you wait; abrupt ration changes unsettle a degu gut further, and any new feeding plan is the vet's call after an examination.
A Pet Passport held in KinsLe gathers that same history into one packet a locum vet can read quickly during a busy appointment.