At 10:35 PM 8/12/00 +0000, Rachel Wall wrote:
>I was thinking of devoting some of my property to my gerbils. Meaning, I
>would let them live outside. Not nesseccarily a natural habitat, but
>outdoors just the same. It would be interesting to see a real clan in the
>wild progress. Yes, the gerbils would be in a restricted area, meaning no
>cat's, dogs, or other animals. And no, gerbils's aren't illegal here (I
>live in washington). Think, they'd probably burrow and have many litters
>like any other gerbils. There would be in breeding problems most likely,
>but that's how it is in the wild, right? :)It's an interesting thought.
>Hopefully I'll be able to do it. :)
This is NOT a very good idea.
Think about it a minute. Even if you put the gerbils in a fence they
can't get out of (and animals are very creative in getting out of
fences), you stated the problem yourself. They burrow. They can dig
their way right out of the fenced area. The only possible way to
prevent this would be to dig down two or three feet, lay down wire --
probably hardware cloth -- that would be attached to the vertical
fencing. And you'd likely have to put a roof on it, too, to prevent
any attempts at climbing and to preventing anything climbing the
fence to get in and have a snack. And if they do manage to find
a hole in the fence to wiggle through, you've now introduced a
non-native species to the environment.
Then there's the problem of breeding and population. These gerbils
will be semi-feral, so they certainly won't be hanging around for you
to easily catch. Nor will you be able to easily get into their
burrows to remove pups. And with no natural predation and you feeding
them, they will have no population checks other than killing each
other when their space becomes overpopulated. That's not a pretty
thought.
Also, these are DESERT animals, and you live in Washington, a
temperate rain forest area. Since you would have to limit how
far down their tunnels would go, it's likely that during wet seasons
you may actually have gerbils and pups drowning in their tunnels.
If you truly want to have some gerbils in a more "natural" environment,
get a really big fish tank and follow the instruction in the FAQ
for creating a dirt tank environment.
Michelle
Flutist
