Hello to all, a problem, and questions about introducing gerbils

[Linda Mooring]

Hello everyone, I'm so happy to have found this mailing list!   I and my two boys have owned gerbils for about a year, ever since we moved from California to Virginia. Gerbils were not legal to own as pets in California, so we knew little about gerbils. The first gerbils we adopted (an adorable pair of black males) were not healthy (among other things one of them had misaligned front and bottom teeth - something I hadn't even known to check for at the time) and in spite of the many efforts of our vets and antibiotics, we lost them both within a month. I know I should have returned them to the pet shop, but we got attached to them and felt obligated to try our best to help them out.   We decided to try again and adopted one female agouti (for me) and two little Argente brothers for my boys. Of course, we kept the boys together in one aquarium and kept my gerbil, Simba, separately in her own, smaller aquarium.   As I mentioned, my family is new to gerbils, and after over eight months of wonderful times with our little pets, we had a tragedy this week. I left for a long weekend (my sister had a baby and I was totally consumed with doing everything I could to prepare for helping her out) and forgot that my husband has never learned about caring for the gerbils. I forgot to tell him to turn on the lamp when it gets cold, and he forgot to feed them. When I got home I found the male gerbils in what I can only describe as hibernation mode. In panic I tried rubbing them, warming them under my hair dryer (set to low), and force-feeding them some water in a dropper. I saved one gerbil and lost the other (my gerbil, Simba, was fine).   As you can imagine, we are devastated. It was my older son's gerbil, Speedy, that we lost. My son had taught Speedy to come to him. He did his homework with Speedy on his shoulder. He'd gotten very attached to Speedy.   I gave my son my gerbil, and that has helped a little, but she still feels to him more like my gerbil than his own. Plus my boys really liked that they could play together with their gerbils, and it seemed like the male gerbils were happier because they had each other. Simba never seemed as happy as the two male gerbils who lived together.   So it has been a couple of weeks now, and I'm wondering what to do. My son would like his own gerbil, but I don't want to buy another aquarium and I'm worried that I'll never be able to introduce a new gerbil to Shorty. Is it worth trying? I considered breeding Simba and Shorty because then at least I could keep the females together in one cage, then work hard to introduce Shorty to any males we got in a litter. Then I did some reading that recommended against any breeding unless I want to "breed superior individuals that will make potential show exhibits" or "try and develop better, or new, colors and patterns."   Well what about just wanting to find a way to get a companion for a solitary gerbil? It seems to me that the easiest way to ensure finding a companion for Simba is to let her live with her daughters (assuming, of course that she doesn't cannibalize her pups). Also, I'd guess I might have a slightly better chance that Shorty would accept some of his own pups given that I'd first of course have to get him used to Simba's scent.   I know if I could get Shorty and Simba together, I couldn't let them be together for long because of a possible delayed implantation.   Any advice? Am I worrying too much about these gerbils being lonely? Should I try buying a new male gerbil and introducing him to Shorty? Should I just give up on getting a new gerbil for my older son and leave things as they are?   Thanks for listening,   Linda Mooring