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Post by mothman on Oct 23, 2014 7:45:31 GMT -8
Having posted last night, go figure Joey did better first thing this morning... took another sunflower seed from me nicely, and for the first time sat on my hand as I moved him to another part of the tank. Huzzah!
He's funny though, he seems to not like any kind of height... when I moved him by hand this morning, I moved him over to the new log ramp that leads to the topper, and he climbed off my hand onto the ramp (about 1/2 way up). He very carefully stretched up and sniffed at the opening to the topper, then promptly turned around and gingerly crawled back down to the floor.
Pepper, on the other hand, is up and down all over the place.
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Post by crittercrazy on Oct 23, 2014 10:37:01 GMT -8
Glad they're both doing so well! I must say I understand Joey's fear of heights. . . Hopefully he'll conquer it soon.
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Post by mothman on Oct 23, 2014 20:52:10 GMT -8
I hope so too! I'm reminding myself to be patient, but honestly Joey is starting to worry me, with how reclusive he is. We rarely see him. As an example, this evening since I got home from work until now (almost 5 hour period), Pepper has been out for probably an hour of that time off and on (10-20 minutes at a time). Joey came out when I first came home, for about 5 minutes, ate a few bites, took a sunflower seed from my hand (went away to eat it) then went back under, and hasn't emerged yet. Is this within what is considered "normal"? I don't even know where he is pooping. LOL They were pooping in the food bowl, or at least I *thought* it was "they"... but Pepper has quickly learned to use the jar in the topper, and now there is no more poop in the food bowl, so I don't know if Joey is just letting 'em go in his nest or what?
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lizb
Member
Posts: 140
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Post by lizb on Oct 24, 2014 17:11:11 GMT -8
One of my boys is like that mothman, he hides more than he's out. Luke is much more likely to dive into the substrate when I go to the tank. I attribute it to the pet store.
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Post by crittercrazy on Oct 24, 2014 17:18:32 GMT -8
He'll probably be out and about more as he gets tamer and more used to this new home, but its also possible that he's awake at night. I've had gerbils that were more active at night. And as Lizb said, the fact they're from a pet store doesn't help sadly. I wouldn't worry about it too much, he might get better over time.
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lizb
Member
Posts: 140
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Post by lizb on Oct 24, 2014 18:15:46 GMT -8
I would have loved to get mine elsewhere, but not driving puts a terrible crimp in the breeder search. It's also possible that not all gerbils are outgoing. Regardless, though, I love my boys.
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Post by crittercrazy on Oct 24, 2014 19:43:22 GMT -8
Yeah, there is only one place to get gerbils without driving six hours here, and that's the pet store. Still, I have some very friendly gerbils, and as you said, I love them no matter where they came from.
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Post by mothman on Oct 26, 2014 19:01:48 GMT -8
Indeed. Where I am I really only had two choices... pet store or an SPCA rescue. Never having owned gerbils before I wasn't comfortable trying a rescue, so I visited 3 pet stores... one I would never buy any animal from, one was iffy, and the 3rd (Pet Smart) was very good.
Both of the gerbils we got thus far seem very healthy (thankfully)... at least I think so! Pepper tamed SUPER fast. Pepper has surprised me with how quickly he tamed, and Joey has surprised me with how nervous he is (with taming, but mostly with just not being very exploratory).
We continue to try to hand feed treats to Joey at those times when he is up and about, Lisa (my wife) was able to hand feed him a little piece of apple tonight, and while he didn't sit on her hand, he sat right beside her hand as he ate it, and he has sat with his body sort of leaning on my hand before. I figure that's all we can really do, and hope that over time he will be more comfortable.
We did have both Pepper and Joey out in our bathroom (on the floor, door closed/blocked) Friday night for some joint play time (first time we had both out), and that went really well. Pepper is more adventurous, but Joey was also enjoying (apparently) running around and under things, and we were able to collect him without too much trouble when it was time to go back.
That time when I put him back, I placed him on the tank shelf, and he looked around a bit, checked out the 2nd food bowl I'd placed there, but then to get down he didn't climb down the ramp, he instead carefully stretched out and sort of slid down on his tummy. Haha! We laughed as it looked pretty funny.
Pepper on the other hand, he is very comfortable climbing from the open topper door out onto my hands, along my arm, even up my chest onto my shoulder. That makes me nervous though as he isn't totally secure with his grip yet and don't want him to fall, so when he does that we direct him back toward my hands.
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Post by mothman on Oct 26, 2014 20:31:44 GMT -8
Update on Joey, I temporarily moved all of their food onto the tank shelf, to see what Joey would do. When he finally emerged from their nest tonight, I witnessed him climbing the first ramp up to the food level! Woohoo! I feel like a proud parent watching their child walk for the first time. lol Well, not really, but there was a big smile on my face. There's hope for Joey yet!
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Post by mothman on Oct 26, 2014 20:47:01 GMT -8
Here's a couple new pictures... Joey chillin' in the food bowl on the super high (not) shelf. Pepper arriving from the penthouse suite to check out Joey's accomplishment. Pepper enjoying a delicious frosty (mostly thawed) frozen pea. Joey got his own as well, but wasn't interested in posing. I noticed when viewing this image that Pepper has some blue color on the inner edge of his eye. Is that an image artifact, or can gerbils actually have blue eye coloring?
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Post by crittercrazy on Oct 27, 2014 6:42:33 GMT -8
So glad things are going well! Great pictures of them by the way- gerbils are a pain to get good shots of. I'm pretty sure that small amount of blue on the inner edge is normal. If his whole eye was blue, then I would worry, but I've seen black eyed gerbils with that before.
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Post by mothman on Oct 27, 2014 20:42:10 GMT -8
Cool, good to know. Pepper continues to amaze with his eagerness to be with us. I finally slapped together our make-shift playpen tonight out of scrapped cardboard boxes. Made it about 3' x 4' in size, about a 1 1/2 feet tall. Plenty of room for both my wife and I to be in there, with lots of open space around us. Pepper went crazy in there running around and climbing us, and the various objects we had in with us. Onyl hard part was rounding him up to put him back after about 20 minutes in the play pen. Unfortunately, Joey wasn't willing to be coaxed into the transport jar... he stretched himself out as long as he could, and snagged the sunflower seed from the jar, then scampered back to enjoy it at home. LOL We should have kept the name Sneaky Pete. Oh well, maybe next time we'll get him... he needs exercise or he's going to be a chubby boy.
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Post by Jazzable on Oct 28, 2014 3:59:01 GMT -8
It's great to be following your gerbs' progress like this, with pictures as well! My most shy gerbil was very slow to tame, it was probably six months of very slow but consistent progress. But it sounds like they're both doing great.
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Post by mothman on Oct 28, 2014 20:31:38 GMT -8
Glad people are enjoying reading through my ramblings. lol I'm probably overdoing it with the posts, but this is all new and interesting to me.
Tonight after having Joey out for a good 15 minutes of playtime in the bathroom (some much needed exercise for him), I decided to place him back home in our topper, where he has only been once before, also when I placed him there.
The last time I did he, he kinda of freaked out. This time he was at least pretty calm, and explored at least the bottom floor of the topper... but he still is apparently scared of climbing (can see this during playtime too where he mostly stays on the floor, and the rare times he does climb on our leg, etc, he's very clumsy with climbing down again), and after about 10 minutes of him walking around the topper floor, (checked out the up ramp, but never climbed on it) I decided to gently herd him toward the exit down to the tank.
He reluctantly allowed himself to be urged along until he had no choice but to go down the hole onto the ramp, at which point he, very tentatively, inched his way down to the tank shelf. He's currently holed up in the wooden house on that shelf, looks like he may nest up in there, which is funny, as neither gerbil has shown any interest in that house before. Kinda think he got a bit overwhelmed by being in the topper again and decided to hole up in the first dark place he could find. >_< lol What a funny little gerbil, and total opposite of Pepper.
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Post by mothman on Oct 30, 2014 14:24:38 GMT -8
We had Pepper out in the playpen with my 6 year old daughter for the first time last night and it was quite fun.
Initially my daughter was apprehensive and asked to leave, but I asked her to stay, and she did, and eventually she got more comfortable. I think she was afraid Pepper might bite, but she realized pretty quickly that he had no intention of doing that. Pepper did not climb up on her, but did sniff at her, rest on her hand a couple times, and at one point I placed Pepper on her leg and she thought that was quite neat.
My daughter thought it was pretty cool how fast Pepper could run, she had no idea gerbils were so fast.
Unfortunately, we again only had Pepper out, as Joey was dug down into their nest.
It was interesting to me as well, while we were doing playtime, my 2.5 year old wandered over and was looking in from outside the playpen, and as soon as Pepper saw her, he hid under my legs and wouldn't come out, and actually did the foot thumping thing for the first time. My wife got our little girl and led her away, and the Pepper came out again.
I'm thinking Pepper has developed a fear of Kaylee (our 2.5 year old) as Kaylee is a loud little girl when upset, and perhaps has startled the gerbils at times (in their tank) by yelling/crying near them. I'm hopeful that over time the gerbils will become more comfortable with her as, while we wouldn't have Kaylee handle the gerbils, it would be nice to have her in the play area with us from time to time.
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