Good morning. I am new to this list and have been working through some
difficulties with the hlep of Ann-Marie.
This is our gerbil history. We had two young gerbils, speedy and
butterscotch. A few weeks ago, butterscotch snuck out of the cage and the
cat played with her. We had a lovely funeral in the garden where we buried
other pets like fish and the frog. Of course, not wanting speedy to get
lonely, we set out to the pet store to get a new gerbil and ended up with
three very young females (felix, crystal, snowflake). We kept them separate
from speedy and swapped them out with her in the habitat to ge tthe scent al
over. Speedy was lonely and so happy for the company that she started to
mother them right away when we put them together. Everything went really
well for wo weeks. Then snowflake started really pushing crystal around. We
couldn't figure out if we had ended up with a male that was reaching
maturity or what was going on. Then crystal started fighting with everyone
and got some pretty nasty bites on her rump and tail. we wondered if she was
pregnant. snow flake is really starting to look different in the genital
area from the rest of the gerbils. I took her out and created her own
habitat and everything instantly calmed down. speedy, felix and snowflake
all slept together and crystal didn't seem to mind being on her own. We
treated her with neosporin and her bum has healed up nicely. While she was
healing, I made a point of getting her out to play with one of the other
gerbils but she would fight with snowflake and speedy. felix and crystal
seemed very happy to see each other. So, I have put felix and crystal
together kind of cold turkey and they are doing great. I think since they
were litter mates and haven't lost each other's scent since they have been
playing together we were very lucky and it seems to be working. since they
are in a temporary habitat, I will have to go out and get them a now cage.
So for the time being we will watch and see hwo everyone is doing.
I guess the questions are, how do we know if snowflake is a boy or a girl?
How do we know if crystal is pregnant or not if snow flake is a boy? If snow
flake is a boy and he is now alone with speedy, I assume we'd have to expect
babies from that sector at some time. it wasn't my intention to breed
gerbils, but it might be interesting to see what happens if we do.
Christine Abbott
