Historical post first published on 3 January 2021. Events, figures, plans and appeals describe that period.
Welcome to the very first Octodons.fr blog post! First of all, we wish you a wonderful 2021, hopefully filled with degus and discoveries!
Octodons.fr
Although Octodons.fr only really got under way recently, we wanted to explain a little more about where it came from. In December 2009, Brindille came into my life. My very first degu, she sparked so much research and so many conversations. Through her, our first experiences on forums introduced us to the Dingues des Dègues community and then Dingues des Todons. In 2010, we began writing an earlier website, which is now very outdated. We had very little information to work with, and very few skills! At the time, our French-language resources consisted of one veterinary thesis and specialist books. Since then, a better command of English and computer tools has opened the door to the numerous, often recent, studies about degus.
Alongside that website, I kept a small blog. It too had its time, and brought many emails asking for help. Over four years, it recorded our adventures with nine little balls of fur. Sadly, the last of them, Parabolle, died towards the end of 2018 after almost a decade with us.
Today, the adventure is beginning again! Toupie and Tempi, rescued from the street, and mischievous Tipi are three male degus with strong personalities. Tipi’s arrival in 2019, followed by Toupie and Tempi in 2020, revived the idea of building a new website. It had long been on the “one day” list, without a date attached. The continuing monthly emails and requests from owners finally persuaded us to take the plunge.
Yesterday brought a lovely surprise: the first statistics came in — 10,000 views in one month, from 3,000 unique visitors! That is quite a start for a website with little content and limited search visibility. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts for taking an interest in our articles. We never imagined it could get off to such a good start within a month. It makes us even more motivated!
A busy year ahead
After discovering almost 300 studies about degus, reading most of them and sorting them, we finally began writing the articles in November. But writing takes time. The first website developed over several years, and the task is now much more demanding. Greater experience, better skills and more research have made the writing process much longer than expected. We thought we could finish the website in a few months… Ha! Not even close.
It is a long undertaking, especially when it comes to research: sorting studies, reading them and checking them. Then the references lead to five more papers, and we start reading and sorting again, over and over. Hours of research become a few lines that everyone can understand. That is the purpose of Octodons.fr: making knowledge accessible and helping people. Balancing accessible scientific explanations with the depth wanted by keen readers is difficult. We are trying, and hope it works. In 2021, we hope to build the website gradually and take the time it needs, putting quality before quantity and contributing to everyone’s understanding of Octodon degus.
From the start of the year until April, our target is two articles a week. The first will be a substantial information article: two feeding articles, covering wild diets and general feeding in captivity, are being reviewed, along with an article about introducing new individuals, largely adapted from an existing guide. These will appear soon. Each week, we also hope to share a homemade enrichment idea to occupy our favourite rodents, with plenty of projects to make at home.
There will be blog updates when we get the chance, especially about introducing Toupie and Tempi to Tipi. Fingers crossed that they accept one another! This second experience of degu introductions is proving complicated, with two animals whose past experiences appear to have left them fearful, and Tempi particularly aggressive towards Tipi.
That brings our first post to an end. Thank you for everything, and once again, happy 2021! We hope the pandemic will end and that we can offer you a complete website as soon as possible.
The Octodons.fr team
Sources
Octodons.fr (2021). [BLOG] Belle année 2021 !. Original post, 3 January 2021. https://octodons.fr/blog-belle-annee-2021/