Nearly two years ago I bought two gerbils to be classroom pets. The students named the brown one Harry and the black on Potter.
Now that I’m not working in a classroom, I have the gerbils here at home.
I found Potter in the cage on his side. He was dead.
I feel really bad for Harry. Gerbils are social creatures and Harry’s lost his pal. I would get him a couple of new ones but I’m not sure that he would accept them.
Gerbils only live a couple of years. While they are social, they don’t always take well to a new gerbil being added to their home.
Has anyone out there ever had gerbils? What sort of success did you have introducing a new, young gerbil into an older gerbil’s home?
GrandPoo says:
Aw, poor Potter and Harry. Good luck with the newbie gerbil.
10/9/2005, 8:07 pmNoah Bawdy says:
I owned scores of gerbils when I was a boy.
They will fight to the death if you just put them in the same cage. You need to put a screen between them the they cannot chew through, dig under or climb over. Give them a week or two to become failure with each other before removing the barrier. I recommend that you get more than one new gerbil (all already used to each other) so you don’t have to do this again for a while.
Best of luck !
Noah
10/9/2005, 8:25 pmNoah Bawdy says:
Wow, reading that back it looks like English is a second language.
Here’s what I meant to say:
I owned scores of gerbils when I was a boy. They will fight to the death if you just put them in the same cage. You need to put a screen between them that they cannot chew through, dig under or climb over. Give them a week or two to become familiar with each other before removing the barrier. I recommend that you get more than one new gerbil (all already used to each other) so you don’t have to do this again for a while.
Best of luck !
Noah
10/9/2005, 8:28 pmLisa says:
I’ve never had gerbils but I had a hamster once that died when I was little. He was kept in our bathroom and the window was left open and he caught pneumonia and died. His name was Nibbles. Sorry about your gerbil.
10/9/2005, 10:20 pmLuAnn says:
Gerbils must be nicer than hamsters then. A few years back, the boys wanted a hamster…so we got one and they named it “George” after the character in “Stuart Little”. Then after a while, they decided George needed a friend. So “Stuart” came to live with us. George was basic brown; Stuart was kind of a buff white. Stuart wanted to be king of the castle so he attacked and took him out. Yes, that is what I mean.
10/9/2005, 10:54 pmBelinda says:
I had gerbils growing up, and I had one female, “Pinky”, who lived an astonishing 6+ years. She had several different “tank-mates” during that time and didn’t have any problems…maybe it’s different when they’re male vs. female.
10/14/2005, 2:56 pm