[Zaynah]

Hi, Whilst cleaning out my 2 gerbils Ronnie and Reggie, this afternoon I put them in their exercise balls as always. They are on stands so they don't roll around the room.

My cat was at the door wanting to come in and as it was raining I let her. She's been around with them in their balls before and has been fine.....I'm sure you can guess what's coming.

I heard a crash and looked round to see her with poor Ronnie in her mouth. I grabbed her and she dropped him and he ran off by which time my partner had picked him up and within less than a minute he died in his hands. I think he died from the shock.

Well I've been in floods of tears and I feel just terrible but what makes it so much worse is that poor Reggie is on his own now. They were both from the same litter. They're about 6 months old.

Now I know that gerbils hate being on their own but I have also read lots of things saying they won't accept a new pal but it breaks my heart to think of Reggie all on his own.

Normally when I've cleaned them out they spend about the next 10 hours running round making their bed and digging tunnels but he's just sitting in his little house and hasn't moved a thing.

I've been reading about these split cages but the shape of their gerbilarium would make it very hard to put a divider in there. My only other option is to do something with their old gerbilarium which I still have although it is much smaller than their lovely big pad I recently splashed out on for them.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Nibbler]

Im not exactly sure but if you look around the forum there is some topics about introducing gerbils like this one http://www.paw-talk.net/forums/f13/...rbil-57318.html?highlight=introducing+gerbils

 

[Elliriyanna]

If the old cage is easier to divide I would get the new boy and move reggie back into it They can always be moved back into the bigger one once they are bonded.

 

[Tsl]

I just recently had a similar problem. I had two males, Niko and Carl. When Niko died, poor Carl needed a buddy. I did some reading on this forum and some other places around the 'net and found out about the split cage method mentioned here. I also read that lone males will usually readily accept babies into their habitat. The upside to this is that if you get two babies when your older gerbil passes, the two babies will likely still be together for quite some time, so you don't have to continually swap gerbils as the older one dies.

So I purchased two 6 week old males, Zig and Zag. I decided to be safe, so I did a split cage for 24 hours, swapping sides every 4 to 5 hours. Then I put them together, keeping leather gloves at the ready. Carl and the new babies took to each other right away, grooming and playing and eventually cuddling up and sleeping together in their tissue nest

You might be able to skip the split cage and just introduce a baby or two right away. Just keep heavy duty gloves on in case they decide not to be friendly!