Introducing my female to my male

[kat312]

Hiya all, i'm hoping you can help me,

My male gerbil passed away 3 weeks ago and didn't want to leave his brother on his own so we decided to get him some female company we introduced them after 2 days, bad idea as he launched himself at her so we put in a divide and kept swapping them round, 2 weeks after we tried them again (today) and they seemed fine at first just sniffing and then she started chasing him around the cage and jumping in his back (is this normal for her to do) then they sort of went into a ball but not necessarily biting, my male got scared and jumped out and hid behnd the sofa. We put the divide back in and they now seem more into each other thatn before. I'm a little confused can anyone give me any tips on introducing?

Thanks

[marcia]

Are you planning on breeding them

[kat312]

Yes i'm planning on breeding them, any help would be great.

[Powerpuffgerbils]

Wrong board.
I have to ask, why are you planning on breeding them? You seem to be new to gerbils, correct? I would study and own same sex pairs before even considering breeding. To answer your question, no two newly introduced gerbils jumping on each other is not a good sign. Seeing as they got into a fight, I would not advice attempting to re-introduce them. Buy a male and female from a petstore and introduce the female to female and male to male in different tanks.
I wouldn't even do that before getting into some serious studying. good luck, and don't be afraid to refer back to the forum for more advice.

[SilverGerbil]

Heya,

I'm going to move this to the correct board for you.

x

[doug]

In some cases first intro's don't take, but a subsequent intro will, I have had some difficult intro's but you must be patient, in one difficult one I left them in a split cage for over a month, look at the behaviour of each gerbil while in the split cage. In some cases gerbils will just never accept another.

Doug

[kat312]

In response to powerpuff gerbils, with all due respect I did have same sex gerbils and like I said my one male died and he was only 1. I could not leave him on his own and the petstores and experts on gerbils had all told me that a female would suit my male gerbil as he is older and she is younger it would be easier for them to take than introducing another male as I have tried that before and it got VERY nasty, i'm new to the introducing stage but I have gerbils for a long time and have never had to introduce before so I'm not new to having them. I only asked for advice on the introducing but would ideally like to try my hand at breeding.

[ohmylokix]

Do not breed them unless they are breeder-bred. Dead babies isn't fun. You should never breed 'just because.' Your male might wish to be alone.

Now that they've rolled into a ball, it's time to abandon that intro, anyway.

Plus whoever said that your male would accept a female easier is incorrect. 2 males are easy to introduce... if you don't rush it. It can take months.

[Powerpuffgerbils]

Like Loki said, Petstore employees normally do not know much, and they usually give bad advice for the sake of selling the animal. :x Like I said earlier, browse the forum, and egerbil.com before thinking about breeding. It takes a lot of gerbil knowledge and experience to breed successfully. It's better to not have gerbil pups than to have beat up adult gerbils from a failed introductions.

[kat312]

At the moment I just want to introduce my gerbils correctly and safely they seem loving through the divide towards eash other, I tried to introduce them again but this time my male ran off and hid lol, but my female looked like she was trying to jump on his back, someone told me that it's her way of showing whos boss. Is that right?

[ohmylokix]

Separate them. It's a sign of excessive dominance, which you don't want.

[doug]

Introductions can take a while, don't rush it, if it takes 2 weeks or even 2 months it is worth it as long as they are fine in the end.

Breeding gerbils DOES NOT take a lot of experience or knowledge to breed, they are one of the easiest rodents to breed successfully, as long as you provide a decent sized cage, decent diet, and know ahead of time how many litters you plan on letting them have. There are many people on this board that like to overeact, mainly due to inexperience with rodents.

Doug

[maxduo]

Hahaha. Yeah the person at the petstore doesn't know what they're talking about. Female intros would always end up worse. Females are the dominant sex and want to be in charge.


Either way just take your time. Like doug said it could be quick or slow, you just need to be careful.

I don't know if someone said this as I skimmed through, but you also need to swap the sides they're on a lot each day to make sure they have to experience each other's scent a lot.

[kat312]

Ok and thank you Doug, I appreciate that. I think she will be very dominant with him. I have one more question (I let the 2 of them out of the cage for a run separately) um when the other one is out he/she jumps up to the cage bars and sniffs around and they come nose to nose most of the time, how do we know if they are just sniffing or trying to bite? I mean they don't make any noise to let us know that they are hurting each other. I just really hope they end up liking each other, she just seems so lonely.

[doug]

I would avoid letting them run around until after the intro is complete, you don't want them picking up other smells. Are you switching the sides they are on every few days? You really don't know about the reaction until you put them together, that is why I always take it slow.

Doug