Here are a few things you should know about gerbils.

The Basics
Breeding
Hand-Taming
Chewing
Interaction

The Basics

Gerbils are very cute, friendly, and inquisitive, which makes them good pets. Most pet gerbils are Mongolian Gerbils – small desert rodents native to Asia, with soft fur and long, fur-covered tails.

Gerbils are social animals and should therefore be kept in pairs or groups, although females should be limited to pairs as they are the dominant sex and will fight if kept in larger groups. You should never put two females with one male, as the females will fight, possibly to the death. (Keeping two males with one female is safe, but can make it difficult to determine which is the father when pups are born!)

If you are introducing two gerbils for the first time, you will need to use the split-cage method (There's a really great guide to split-cage intros at Twin Squeaks Gerbils).

Breeding

The decision to breed must never be made lightly. A female gerbil reaches fertility as early as ten weeks and remains fertile for up to two years; she goes into estrus (‘heat’) for every four to eight days; pregnancy lasts twenty-one to twenty-four days. Breeding pairs will mate almost immediately after the new pups are born, although the resulting pups are usually not born until the first litter is weaned, in about six weeks. I didn’t have to be a math whiz to see that that means a whole lot of babies! (There's a rather funny story at ABC Gerbils that illustrates this point!)

Raising pups alone is a lot of strain on a mother gerbil, so removing the father after the first litter is born is a bad idea. You can remove him after the second litter is born, as long as you leave a female from the first litter with the mother to help with the new pups. After a litter is weaned, the pups should be housed separately by gender.

Hand-Taming

Do not expect to be able to hold your gerbil the day you bring them home. In the wild, they are prey animals, which makes them very cautious and easy to frighten. However, taming them is very easy. Several times a day, rest your hand on the bottom of their cage, allowing them to crawl over it, sniff it, and possibly even ‘taste’ it (‘tasting’ nips are painless and quite cute). If your gerbil bites you, blow a puff of air in its face. Try putting food or sunflower seeds on the palm of your hand to attract your gerbils.

Eventually, they will become comfortable enough to climb onto your hand, at which point you can try lifting them up. If they don’t want to be picked up, they’ll hop off; I recommend letting them go, unless you need to remove them from their cage for cleaning or any other reason. Scaring them might make them slower to trust you.

NEVER pick your gerbil up by the tail! Gerbil tails are delicate, and you can easily break the tail or pull the skin off of it.

Chewing

Gerbils are relentless chewers. For this reason, you may not want to give them access to any plastic. Some gerbil owners have said that chewing plastic can be harmful or even fatal to gerbils, but others have said it’s totally safe. My girls chewed several inches off the end of the plastic ‘slide’ in their habitat and are doing fine so far.

Interaction

Playing with your gerbil can be tons of fun. You can make a corral out of cardboard, or buy one (some pet stores like Petsmart sell ‘critter playpens’). Right now, I just have a box to play with my gerbils, and I put in a few cardboard tubes and their sand bath. I also keep them there while I clean their cage, but only if someone else is around to keep an eye on them!

Again, gerbils make wonderful pets for children and adults alike, but it is important to remember that all pets come with responsibilities.