gerbil baby questions - Paw Talk

#1 06-18-2003, 10:10 PM

My gerbil had 2 babies about 5 or so weeks ago. One is a boy and one is a girl. I am planning on leaving the girl baby in with the mother so that she won't be alone. And i want to put the boy baby in with the father. Now i have two questions. Is it possible for me to put the boy in with the father gerbil or will they fight? And the boy seems underdeveloped. He is only half the size of his sister. He is really tiny. Is is possible for him to stay in longer with his mom or is it better to seperate him after 6 weeks? Thanks in advance for anyone who can answer my questions.

#2 06-25-2003, 11:42 PM

I guess i was wrong to say thanks in advance since no one answered.

Becki · #3 06-26-2003, 02:21 AM

Aww, sorry no one got back to you

I personally don't have any gerbils (although I would love to) but I'll see if I can't find you an answer!

Becki · #4 06-26-2003, 02:47 AM

Ok, for the first question, it seems that male gerbils are fairly easy to introduce/get along, especially if one is a baby. Here is a link to a whole page on introductions http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/gerbi...duceGerbil.htm
I don't think the 2 cages are completely neccesary, just keep a very close eye on them at first and don't leave them alone right away. They sound very similar to rats, which I do have experiance with. Off to see if I can find something for question 2...

Ravnos · #5 06-26-2003, 02:56 AM

I have only rarely had a problem introducing gerbils to each other. As long as they have plenty of space, generally they seem to get along pretty well... I would be concerned about the little guy being a runt though. A size difference will obviously make one more dominant and could end up with him being picked on - or just simply bowled over randomly.

Rav

Becki · #6 06-26-2003, 03:07 AM

OMG Rav!!! They are adorable! And here I thought you just did herps, no fuzzies!

Everything I could find said that gerbils reach sexual maturity at about 3 months, so I would say you should be fine leaving him with mom a little longer than 5-6 weeks. Maybe start supplementing him a bit.

Just a note, most of the pages I read just said leave the parents together and the dad will help with the babies and they will mate again either during birth, or directly after so it was really hard to find anything about when to separate males and females. Odd, seems that anyone who ever bred them would be over run with gerbils quick with that method!

Ravnos · #7 03-21-2004, 04:25 PM

Sorry for the EXTREMELY slow reply... I was just going through my web server logs and saw a reference to this post. I started off with fuzzies, and then got into herps... I certainly haven't stopped with the fuzzy stuff.

Rav