Split cages
one of my gerbils just died. i still have his brother and i wanted to get him a buddy so he's not so lonely. i wanted to know the easiest way to make a secure split cage. please don't give me any links to sites! i want a step by step process of the easiest and less expensive way to make one. also are they seperate tanks, or can i build one using the tank i already have?
Answers:OMG!! i have this excat same problem! and i just got a new gerbil today to put in there. you HAVE to have a 20 gallon long. and get this all t petco. they are VERY reliable. and you can get fish tank dividers also.
Mongolian Gerbils are a very territorial animal. They can be very aggressive towards a gerbil that they see as an intruder and will fight to the death to try and drive away unfamiliar gerbils. Gerbils aged under 10 weeks in age can normally be introduced to one another, but if one or both gerbils are over this age introductions can be very difficult. Many people have different methods for introducing adults. Personally I would not recommend any that rely on gerbils just "fighting it out". Even if the gerbils settle down, fighting can flare up days or even weeks later. What I suggest is a method that takes advantage of a gerbils natural tendency to mark their territory.
This is known as "The split cage method" and works like this:
1. Get yourself a tank or cage that you can split into two halves in a way that means that the gerbils on each side can see and smell one another but cannot bite or scratch one another through the bars. You can buy dedicated hamster style cages that have a wire partition down the middle. If you can't get one of them then you can either use a fine wire mesh fitted to a frame that fits diagonally in a glass tank, or you can use a smaller hamster style cage inside a larger cage or tank.