I guess I would give her some cooling off time in her cage. I would wash my hands of all food smells and just try to let her smell me and move away everytime it looked like she would bite.Give her some time. try talking to her as you try to pet her.Take care of that finger.
>From: Sari Maukonen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>Subject: Biting gerbil
>Date: Thu, 30 Aug 2001 22:50:33 +0300
>
>Hi,
>
>I have gotten some good advice from you guys before, so I am turning to you again with a rather big problem. I was letting my two female gerbils run loose for about half an hour on my bedroom floor yesterday evening. When I tried to catch the other one in the same fashion as I usually do, i.e. I formed a cup of my hands and grabbed her like that. As she had gotten fond of running loose like she always does, she was rather wild in my hand (usually I manage with that) and then she tried to leap back to the ground. I must have tried to re-grab her in a careless manner that either hurt or or frightened her, because she sank her teeth into my fingertip and made a very nasty cut. When I tried to catch her again a few minutes after that, she bit me again when I had just formed the cup on top of her again. I tricked her to a cardboard box and got her back to her terrarium without having to touch her again. This morning I fed her some sunflower seeds by holding the see!
d between two f!
>ingers and letting her grab it from there. I thought that might be a good idea to try to regain her trust because it is evident that she is terrified of my hands at the moment. When I let her smell my finger (from the other hand than the one I fed her the seeds with), she sniffed it for a few seconds and went for another bite, but this time I was fast enough to take my hand away from the terrarium so she didn't manage to bite me too hard.
>
>I just don't know what to do now... I don't dare touch her or try to take her out of the terrarium because I'm not too keen on being bitten again. Is it a good idea to let her be in peace in the terrarium for a couple of days? Will she forget? Or what could I do to regain her trust? I'm just feeling very worried and rather desperate because of the situation. Any help would be greatly appreciated!
>
>- Sari
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at
http://explorer.msn.com
