Gerbil's can determine the amount of food they need, they sometimes evan build storages. But when it comes to the food they should be fed, the bedt suitable food would be any gerbil brand of food but remember not to many sunflower seeds(they are fattening). Good treats that gerbils should be givenonce in a while or they will get diarrhea. But they do eat apples, carrots, chicory, cucumber, banana's etc. They sometimes like dry bread to knaw on.
The best gerbil cage is not a cage it is an aquarium. Cages with bars enable the gerbil's to kick out the bedding when they are digging. A glass container is also very easy to clean and it is very clean to.just remember you don't want bedding all over your surface the gerbil's are on top of. A suitable sized tank for 2-3 gerbils would be a 10 gallon aqaurium. Make sure it has just enough space for them to run a little.
Don't place to much things in the gerbil aqaurium, there has to be enough space for your gerbils to run and dig. A shoe box, Chew toy and a play piece is very suitable for gerbils. remember everything made of wood, plastic or cardboard will eventually be chewed into pieces. A clay pot with a hole will last forever. Don't give your gerbils a water dish, they will knock it right over, a water bottle is very suitable and a food dish is fine too or you can just put some food in a corner of the tank. Now the bedding, the proper bedding is aspen ships. You must and I mean must remember NO CEDAR!, Cedar has non suitable oils in it which can make a gerbil very sick and may evan kill it. Pine is ok as long as you don't have a breeding pair, the oild can detiorate the baby's skin causing it to die. Aspen is by far the best bedding to use.
The best way to introduce new gerbils is the split cage method, this cause cuases the gerbils to track each other's scent and get along with eack other. 1)Put a piece of cardboard across the tank to split it in half and put a few holes in it so the gerbils can smell each other. 2)Put one gerbil on each side and everyday change them from side to side for a week 2 at the most. 3)After that take the divider out and if it did not work just do it again.
You may or may not want to get into the gerbil breeding business. Female gerbils can get pregnant once a month, and that can add up to a lot of gerbils, fast. If you decide you do want to breed gerbils, keep in mind how much space you have to house them in, how much time you have to care for them. Gerbil breeding is mainly done as a hobby, or for scientific research. In my case, it's both for pleasure and research. I'd like to breed new colors. :)
Also make sure you're going to have places to give your babies too. It is not recommended that you give your pups to snake breeders(lol). Imagine how terrorizing it is for a young pup to be snapped up by the jaws of a snake, and slowly digested. Pups week sexual maturity at around nine to ten weeks of age. If you haven't gotten rid of your litter by then, make sure you separate the boys from the girls! Don't think for a second that just because they're brother and sister that they won't breed.
When picking out a pair, it's really important to buy them from a reputable breeder. If you're purchasing a breeding pair from a pet shop, you'll have no idea what their genetics are, or their family tree. In which case, you have no idea what color pups they will have. Keep in mind when buying gerbils from a petshop, that pet shops don't handle their animals. Breeders do. So the gerbils you purchase from a breeder will be more accustom to humans than those bought in a pet store.
Make sure your pair don't have kinked tails or any other visible injuries. You don't want any bare patches in their fur where you can see skin. Make sure they look healthy. Also, look at their cage mates. If their cage mates are sick, hold off on purchasing the pair. Wait until they've been properly treated by the breeder with the others. You don't want to bring any diseases home to any other pets you may have.
How do you tell the males from the females? Adult males will have extremely large backsides compared to the females. This is because their scrotum containing the testes is hanging down underneath their tail. If the gerbils are young however, you will have a harder time seeing this. On males, the genitals are further apart from the anus as apposed to the very short distance between the anus and the genitals on a female. Adult females do not have big bottoms in comparison to males. Also look at my gerbil adoption page for adopting gerbils. If nothing is currently available be sure to chack back in a few weeks.
