Foot Stomp

[mothman]

One of our young gerbil boys started randomly foot stomping last night in the middle of the night.

I know they will stomp when startled or frightened, but I found it strange that he started it in the middle of the night, a good few hours since we had all gone to bed, nothing happening out in the area they are housed... it woke me up, and I went to see what was going on... a steady Thump... Thump... Thump, about once every second, and nice and loud, lol, he was doing it on their fiddle stick ramp, and it echoed nicely, haha.

I watched him for a while, he continued thumping for a minute or so, and then stopped, and walked around the tank a bit, and I noted that when he walked around, he moved sort of "robotically" if that makes sense, like he was moving in short bursts of movement.  Like, two steps, stop, a couple more steps, stop, look around, freeze, a few steps, stop, in quick succession.  Looked odd.

He then went back on the ramp, thumped a bit more for 30 seconds or so, then stopped and just sat there.  I went back to bed and didn't hear him do it again, this morning he (and his brother) were out of sight in their bedding.

So what was that all about?  Do gerbils sometimes stomp just for the hell of it?  And that robotic movement, I imagine that is maybe a caution thing on his part, stopping frequently to scan for danger, etc?  But again, weird that it would happen out of the blue.

[eleda]

When something like this happens I just assume they smelled or heard something I couldn't detect. Without knowing what the room is like or how it's set up I can't speculate on what could have caused it, but its very easy to spook a gerbil imo. The jerky movement thing was cautious behavior. My gerbils do the same thing when they've had a fright and are trying to assess their situation.

[lizb]

Yes! My boys do. My totally unscientific opinion is they a. want to make noise, b. want out of the tank, or c. hear something we aren't aware of. As for robotic walking... I don't know. I'll be interested in other people's experience.
(I'm a writer so when I read your post, my mind flipped to him enacting his gerbil soldier dreams. But, I'm weird. Wait. I already said I was a writer. No need to be redundant.)

[mothman]

Thanks for the comments. The 'robot motion' actually looked kind of funny... he was clearly fine, just moving differently than I'd seen before.