Sitemaps

Tell me stuff about gerbils2007-11-24 22:15:14

I might get gerbils soon and I have 3 questions about them. Here it goes.

1. Do they live better in pairs? If so, which pairs are better, males or females?

2. Would a cage like this one http://www.petco.com/product/8304/coast-... be good for two of them?

3. Do gerbils chew everything up?

If you can help me, I will be glad. I will read each answer carefully befor choosing a best answer.

Answers:

I had gerbils twice (so that would amount to about 15 years of experience).

1. They do live better with more than one. Two females live together better than two males and don't yield a bunch of babies either. I found that males tended to beat up on females or smaller gerbils.

2. I can't see the cage. Sorry, link won't come up. We had a Habitrail the first time, and I used an aquarium cage the second time. Having a running wheel in both was great for all. There were advantages to both, but the Habitrail was more fun for me to see (harder to clean).

3. Gerbils love to chew. I often gave them the sunday newspaper and they adored the inner cardboard core from toilet paper and paper towels. They would run through a bunch of times and then chew it up. Plastic toys were damaged quickly, so I just had a metal running wheel and water thing with a glass feeder. Ceramic feed bowls. Today's newspaper is actually safer as the print is made from soy.

Gerbils are sensitive to odors, so be sure to wash your hands particuarly if you've handled something with a perfume. My cousins' had hamsters, but they tended to live in their sock. You will see plenty of your gerbils towards the evening hours and mine were always noisy around 11 p.m. running and knocking over their wheel.