Tell me about gerbils

[MichelleinMaine]

We've been toying with getting DD something small and furry for a pet. (She'd love something big and furry, but allergies say otherwise. ) We'd pretty much decided on a guinea pig as we have tended the school pet over many a vacation.

Now a friend of a friend is looking to get rid of 2 gerbils with their cage, etc. (She's moving.) I don't know a whole lot about gerbils, what do I need to know?

For what it's worth, DD is 10 and very responsible. She has hermit crabs in her room that she is fully responsible for. I hold no illusions, though, mom's going to need to remind/help clean out the gerbil cage/etc. Cage will be in the family room, I'm thinking they're noctural,no?

 

[Feralpeg]

I had hamsters, gerbils and mice when I was young. They are nice little pets, but not really something you can really play with. Mine had tendency to bite...especially the hamsters. It would draw blood. After a few bites, they rarely got to leave their cage.

You must keep the cage/bedding very clean or they begin to smell.

They are nocturnal creatures. They love to run on their little wheel at night. I've never seen a wheel that didn't squeak. It can be rather irritating in the middle of the night when they decide to play on their wheel.

 

[brytorlyn]

They SMELL!!

Even if you clean the cage frequently...they smell. (I have a sensitive nose) Even when we cleaned the cage...scrubbing it and replacing the bedding it smelled by the next day. So gross...never again.

 

[E&BMom]

(E&BMom's DD here) They're very good pets. I spend a lot of time around small animals and they are by far the best. I've had 7... 3 pairs and 1 single. They do better in pairs.
They're very friendly but not at all needy. I have never, ever had a gerbil bite me in all my years of handling them.
I've convinced reluctant friends to get them, and they enjoy them much more than mice or hamsters they've had in the past.

They're actually considered diurnal, so they're supposed to sleep in the night and be active during the day, but in my experience they're usually active for a 4-5 hour period and then sleep for about that long as well. They're usually not loud when I'm sleeping, but if they are, I just remove whatever they're chewing or banging from the cage.

Their cages need to be cleaned waaayyy less often than other small animals. I aim for once a month with my two now, but honestly, they don't even need that. I never notice an odor, and I'm picky (If the rabbit cage goes a day without being scooped, I can't handle it). Since they're desert animals, they don't drink too much and therefor don't use the restroom as much.

So, I would say go for it! I've loved all my gerbils. I got the first one when I was 8 and she lived 5 years. I've had them ever since! If you just google gerbil care, there are some really helpful sites (http://www.abcgerbils.com/whygerbils.html). Good luck!

 

[SookieStackhouse]

In my opinion, gerbils are pretty creepy...and they live a long time. I had one when I was a kid, it was kind of hateful, you wouldn't dare stick your hand in the cage when it was awake because it would bite you. It stayed hidden most of the time too.

Hamsters seem to be more popular, I had one of those too, I liked it better. But if the gerbils are free, or really cheap...might as well go for it.

 

[Tammi67]

Santa just brought my kids 2 gerbils for Christmas. My DS had been begging for one, so I did, and had HIM do, a lot of research on the care for gerbils. So far they have been enjoyable, and require very little work. We got a 10 gallon aquarium, some bedding, a water bottle, wheel, wooden house (they NEED things to gnaw on to grind down their teeth), and a food bowl. We've ended up not using the food bowl, as they were always peeing and pooping in it, so now we just lay their pellets in the cage. They love the wheel and are quite entertaining to watch. Make sure you get a full plastic wheel, not the wire ones, as their tail can get caught in those. They love toilet paper/paper towel rolls. They will chew them up. The next thing I'm going to put in there is an empty tissue box. I've also purchased little wooden gnaw sticks for them. Like the pp said, they do sometimes get up at night and "play". But if they don't have anything in there to do, they will sleep. My son cleaned out their cage after a week, and it really wasn't smelling. I think we will start going a little longer between full cage cleanings.

The best advice I can give you is to put them in a wire cage or and aquarium. Not those plastic things with all the tubes/tunnels. While they are cute to watch in those, they will poo and pee in the tubes and they will be very difficult to keep. Plus they will chew on the plastic. Gerbils chew. A lot. They need safe things to chew on.

Oh, and get two. They are social animals. They will be so much more fun to watch. Make sure they have already been caged together and are used to each other. They could fight otherwise, and fight to the death. Make sure you get 2 of the same gender, unless you want babies. I learned that my local pet store is a male only store. Meaning they only get shipments of males, so there is no chance in a mistake. But I also looked at pictures on how to tell gender, just to be sure.

If you want more info, feel free to PM me your specific questions.

 

[dawn1620]

They are like any other pet - there are plus and minuses.

When DH and I were first married we "rescued" a gerbil and a year later we ended up with five.

They are social creatures but you can't just put a strange one in a cage with another, they will most likely fight, they have to be familiar with their cagemate. We even tried to introduce two over time and they never got along. They are very territorial and if they meet a strange gerbil they will fight.

They chew everything so make sure they have plenty of things to chew on - we used toilet paper rolls, cardboard but they loved the wood toys and those lasted a lot longer. The wire cages work great, but the aquarium cages (with a ventilated top) contain mess more because they do have a tendancy to dig a lot so shavings will fly around.

They are relatively clean rodents. If you keep the cage cleaned out then they don't really smell - we would clean ours out every two weeks and we never smelled it. We had a hamster once and no matter what we did it always smelled.

They will stomp their feet - it is a sign of fear or it means they are unhappy (it sounds like a thumping noise). Ours used to do it when we did not feed them quickly enough.

It's not necessary but get them some of the bath dust that chinchillas like to use - we used to put a bowl into their cage sometimes and they loved it (the funniest thing is seeing a gerbil roll around in that). But it does make a huge mess so be prepared.

We also used to get them the large rope toys that birds have or some of the dog rope toys - they loved to chew the heck out of those and they would use the rope they chewed off to make their "nest" that they sleep in.

Most of the time if gerbils are handled a lot they become very sweet but you can see they have different personalities if you pay enough attention. We had one that hated to be held, we had one that loved to be held. The one that hated to be held would not bite but would nip you a bit as a warning to let you know she was not happy.

No wheels unless they are solid, not the wire ones because they will lose a tail. And never pick one up by the tail because the skin could come off.

They don't vocalize a lot but you will hear squeaking sounds sometimes, usually when one is annoying the other.

They usually live three to five years. If they get out of the cage it may be days before you see one. Our sweetest gerbil escaped while we were cleaning her cage and we could not find her for three days. She finally made an appearance and when I managed to catch her she bit me three times - they have very sharp teeth.

 

[minkydog]

DD17 raised about 150 gerbils between the ages of 5 and 15. They were the delight of her life and she would have some now, if i would let her(she's going off to college in the fall, so no more pets!) Gerbils are communal animals, so they need to live together in groups. If they come from the same litter they will get along swimmingly. But don't try to introduce a new gerbil to their happy home--they will fight to the death and it ain't pretty.

Gerbils are desert animals, so they don't require much special food. Gerbil food will do. In fact, they can't tolerate much fresh food, like lettuce or grapes. It can give them diarrhea and they will die.But being desert animals, they also don't pee and poo much (unlike hamsters, which pee all the time!) We kept ours in a 20-gal aquarium with a wire mesh top(very important! Ours would try to jump out.) The only times we had problems with smell was when DD failed to clean the cage regularly. and by regularly I mean at least once a week. It's not an every day thing.

Be sure you can tell the gender of the two gerbils. When DD,then-5, brought home her first 3 we were told they were all girls. Well...they were ALMOST all girls. Thirty days later we found out just which ones were girls. Gerbils mate almost immediately after giving birth, so both the girls were pregnant right away. Should this happen to you, you need to know how to deal with it. You CANNOT take the father out of the cage prior to the babies' birth. The father gerbil co-parents and without him the mother will become so stressed she will actually eat the babies. Believe me, you don't want your child to see this. However, if there is another adult female living in the cage, a daughter or sister, you can remove the father at least 2 weeks ahead of the births and the other female will help the mother parent the babies.

Once we learned how to assess gender we made up two cages, the Boys Dorm and the Girls Dorm. Babies stay with mothers until they are 5 weeks old, at which time they can eat seeds and don't need their mothers' milk. At tthat time we separate the boys and girls. And that will stop the cycle of procreation.

I didn't find the gerbils to be difficult to care for at all. DD played with them every day. She made little clothes for them, dressed them up with her little Barbie tiaras, and road them around in her pink Barbie car. She had a pair of overalls and often carried them around in the front pocket. The gerbils knew her and they would all stand up to greet her when she came near. DD gave each gerbil their own little pumpkin seed every day. And they loved nothing better than a near empty toilet roll. The gerbils would sit in the corner "knitting" all day, turning the cardboard into lacy nest material.

Our gerbils didn't care for those hamster tubes. They liked their wheel and a little house to play in. Otherwise they just entertained themselves. Gerbils are not nocturnal, unlike hamsters, so they didn't keep us awake at night. For us, gerbils were a great way for DD to have pets because they weren't terribly demanding. She was very responsible about it, even at the age of 5. She never injured one and in fact, when one of them fell off the couch and broke its back, she nursed it back to health and it lived another 2 years! Most of our gerbils lived 3-4 years, We did have one Old Mother who lived to be 5.

 

[palmtreegirl]

We have gerbils and they do not smell and we change their tank every 2 weeks. I have a very sensitive sense of smell and that's why we got gerbils, because they are desert creatures and don't drink or eat a lot.

They're really sweet, have never bitten us and my kids hold them a lot. They'll even play and chase each other around the cage which is fun to watch. They chew like crazy! We five them toilet & paper towel tubes.

They're very low maintenance, low cost pets and we have no regrets about buying them.

 

[Anne34]

They SMELL!!

Even if you clean the cage frequently...they smell. (I have a sensitive nose) Even when we cleaned the cage...scrubbing it and replacing the bedding it smelled by the next day. So gross...never again.

We have 3 gerbils and their cage smells WAY less than our 1 hamster!!!! The gerbils are much friendlier. They chew through everything we have ever put into the cage -- the plastic bed, plastic toys, chew toys, etc..... They have even tried to go through the cage -- just be careful!

I would say to go for it. My DD13 loves hers a lot.

 

[KimR]

We have 3 gerbils and their cage smells WAY less than our 1 hamster!!!! The gerbils are much friendlier. They chew through everything we have ever put into the cage -- the plastic bed, plastic toys, chew toys, etc..... They have even tried to go through the cage -- just be careful!

I would say to go for it. My DD13 loves hers a lot.

I'm surprised that your hamster cage smells. How often do you clean it? DD spot cleans ours daily then gives it a thorough cleaning once a week with a deodorizing spray and it has very little odor.

 

[Geoff_M]

I had them for a while as a kid around 10 years old. Mine were biters, and once I pulled my finger out of the cage with one firmly clamped down into my finger. I probably cannot blame all of the meanness on the Gerbils. I won't say that I was "mean" to them, but I'm sure that did a few things (as common with 10 year old boys) that the Gerbils didn't appreciate.

They are extremely nocturnal. expect lots of "activity" noise at night.

As someone else mentioned, they are BIG chewers. I'd recommend a glass aquarium with metal objects inside. We had one of those plastic "Habitrail" set-ups an they'd chew everything they could get their mouth around to pieces... tube ends, exercise wheels... you name it.

They are also fantastic leapers. If you leave even a small opening in the cage top, you can be sure they'll be gone by morning. I think I had a total of three Gerbils. One died in the cage, and the other two (after several re-captures) escaped and disappeared.

 

[hsmamato2]

I personally dislike gerbils and hamsters...they both seem to bite too much (had them as a kid) I much prefer a nice guinea pig or even pet mice,those mice are cute and they are so friendly! Never had a mouse bite,ever!
mice only live 2 years,guinea pigs can go for 10 or longer

 

[MichelleinMaine]

Thanks all! Very much appreciate the feedback. I spoke with the lady giving them away (turns out to be someone I know from nursery school years back, not the type to be feeding me lies or anything). She said they are two girls, have been together since they got them. (No one got pregnant or fought to the death, so I guess that is good. ) She said they are very friendly and well mannered. Her primary reason for passing them on isn't the move, but that her son has lost interest in them. DD is a huge animal person (tenderly caring for even her homely little hermit crabs herself 3 years now). I don't think we'll have that problem.

The cage, food, bedding, water bottle, etc is all included. She didn't mention a wheel but if we need to get one, will make sure it's "tail safe". The girls will be living in the family room, so in the thick of the action during the day, but our bedrooms are not nearby. If they want to squeak the wheel, chew, stamp their feet (I laughed that that one, envisioning little tiny gerbil feet in a tantrum ).

She's going to email me back a time we can go get them this weekend.

 

[minkydog]

Thanks all! Very much appreciate the feedback. I spoke with the lady giving them away (turns out to be someone I know from nursery school years back, not the type to be feeding me lies or anything). She said they are two girls, have been together since they got them. (No one got pregnant or fought to the death, so I guess that is good. ) She said they are very friendly and well mannered. Her primary reason for passing them on isn't the move, but that her son has lost interest in them. DD is a huge animal person (tenderly caring for even her homely little hermit crabs herself 3 years now). I don't think we'll have that problem.

The cage, food, bedding, water bottle, etc is all included. She didn't mention a wheel but if we need to get one, will make sure it's "tail safe". The girls will be living in the family room, so in the thick of the action during the day, but our bedrooms are not nearby. If they want to squeak the wheel, chew, stamp their feet (I laughed that that one, envisioning little tiny gerbil feet in a tantrum ).

She's going to email me back a time we can go get them this weekend.

I think you are going to be very happy with your new gerbils. Honestly, i enjoyed them just as much as DD did. We even took ours on a 6,000 mile 2 month long cross country trip--they rode around in their cages in the bathtub of our RV. And wait til you see them stamp their foot at you. Too cute!

The one caveat about the bedding--don't use cedar shavings. A lot of small animals are allergic and can get very sick if they're exposed to it. We used corn cob litter, available at the pet store. Very absorbant, no odor, no dust, very "diggable." Important to the gerbils, doncha know.