Gerbils- BRILLIANT Family Pet (Gerbils)

Member Name: treesaregreen

Product:	Gerbils
Date:	24/03/09 (233 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See Review

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----------------WHAT EXACTLY ARE GERBILS?-------------

Gerbils are in fact classified as desert rats, they are originally from Mongolia and in the wild, live in tunnels and chambers under the ground with their family. They look similar to hamsters but have much longer tails, which helps them steady themselves when they are crawling around and standing on their hind legs. However unlike hamsters, they aren't 'nocturnal' and instead tend to sleep for a few hours, active for a couple of hours, sleep for a few hours, active for a couple of hours...and so on...

There are over 20 different colours of gerbil coat as can be seen on the website below:
http://www.egerbil.com/sites/default/files/basic. jpg
I personally have a black one and a kind of goldeny brown (known as Golden Agouti) which I think are both really cute, but of course the other colours are too- the great thing about the different coloured coats also is that if you have children, they can choose their own gerbil and tell them apart from each other easily.

----------GERBILS AS PETS--------

In my opinion, gerbils are one of the best pets you can get- especially for children.
This is because they are very low maintenance and therefore fairly low cost and although it sounds very harsh, they only live for about 3-4 years maximum so are not a long term commitment!
Because they are in fact desert rats, they have actually adapted their kidneys as a species so that they produce the least amount of waste possible (in layman's terms- they don't pee a lot!) which is great because it means that you do not have to clean their tank out loads- as long as you replace the old or dirty sawdust from the top of the cage, you shouldn't have to completely clean the tank more than once a fortnight.

Gerbils are very entertaining and interesting to watch, they burrow and build tunnels through their bedding which you can see through a glass cage and they like to chew and shred bits of cardboard and things like that- (think of it as a second purpose investment as a paper shredder for important documents!!) They are also naturally inquisitive, and once they are settled in, they will happily be picked up and handled by children which is also a great benefit!

----------LOOKING AFTER YOUR GERBILS-----------

Admittedly, it is very easy to spend a small fortune on equipment for your gerbil, but personally I think that you could also easily save quite a bit and get a bit of bargain!
Firstly you obviously need a tank/cage for your gerbil, this is the main bit of expense as you really shouldn't (even though some pet assistants may tell you you can) buy a hamster style cage with plastic parts or thin metal bars. This is because of the nature of gerbils! They simply LOVE to chew and if you are not careful, they will quickly chew out of their housing and they are pretty hard to find again once they have got out! So you really need a sturdy, preferably glass tank- in some pet shops you can find yourself paying up to £80 for such an item.
However, in my case, I managed to buy an old, fairly large, fish tank from my local recycling centre and my dad just made sure that there was no gaps or places that a gerbil could climb out and it cost me less than £10! You could also look around at boot sales as my friend managed to get a second hand 'gerbilarium' as they are known for £15 which had hardly been used, so keep your eye out for these bargains!

You then fill your gerbil tank about 3/4 full with sawdust, shredded paper (not newspaper as the ink of the pages can be harmful for the gerbils if they chew/digest it) and other gerbil bedding which can be purchased from any good pet shop. The gerbils will then create their own environment by burrowing and creating areas for sleeping/eating etc.
A bowl will need to be provided for food and either a water dispenser style feeding point or another bowl needs to be provided for their water- although I have heard stories of gerbils that have managed to drown in the water bowl so personally I prefer the idea of the water dispenser. It is important that gerbils are given proper gerbil food rather than just hamster food or something similar because they are actually quite different animals and need different things in their diet.

As far as other amenities such as toys go, you really really don't need to buy lots of expensive and specialised gerbil toys. In my gerbil tank, I have a wooden house that I did buy from a pet shop, but I also have several cardboard loo/kitchen roll tubes which they love to wriggle through, I also have a couple of large stones so they can wear their claws down a little and a brick tube that I found in my garden!

-----------------BUYING YOUR GERBILS-----------------------

Make sure that you check your gerbils out properly when you buy them, and make sure that you are getting them from a respectable seller who has raised them well.
You should check that they are alert and able to move around easily, make sure that their coat is glossy and healthy and just quickly check that they do not have any obvious problems which are visible such as discharge from the ears or nose, or weeping from the eyes.
Also, as gerbils are very social animals- it is pretty much essential that you buy them in at least pairs, or you may prefer to buy three or more. Also, it is important that they are from the same litter and have been living in the same tank because gerbils can often fight if they do not recognise each other's smell or think they are from a different litter. If you do get gerbils from different sources or litters, you will need to keep them in separate cages- my friend found this out when she mixed two gerbils from seperate litters and they fought so badly that one of them was actually killed from their injuries which is very upsetting :(

------------------ SUMMARY -------------------

So basically, gerbils are great pets and they will bring endless enjoyment and fun to those that look after them. The only disadvantages I can see of having these pets is that it is easy to spend far too much on the tank and other equipment and when you first get them they may be quite jumpy and take a while to get use to you- so handling regularly is essential!

Summary: Gerbils are one of the best family pets you can get!