Inherited 'slow to react-ness'

[betty]

Not sure how to describe it but I have a family of gerbils (mum and 2 litter-mate daughters) in a 3ft long tank with shelves, tunnels and tubes etc, who don't seem to react to me entering the tank for some time - up to and over 5 minutes really.

I was not worried about this in itself - as all their other vitals are normal - but it just seems weird that when I go in the tank, add things/move things/put in mealworms, etc, they don't come straight out to investigate like all my other gerbils do. Even my more wary gerbils are still interested as soon as things go still again.

I just wondered whether it was an inherited behaviour or illness that was causing this - for example are they paralysed with fear when I drop meal worms in the lid? Are they sleeping so deeply that they take ages to notice the new smells/vibrations/etc.

The mother did have some issues when she had her litters and her breeding was stopped, but she came from a line of wonderful gerbils, who are still wonderful and are still producing wonderful gerbils.

Any comments on possible biological reasons for this?

I have 2 of her other siblings with me still who were both attacked by their tank-mates at about 6 months and have been re-split since and seem to be acting 'normally' but are in smaller tanks so are more reactive to me.

Any thoughts??

[lizb]

I don't have an answer for you, but you may get more direct responses in either the health or breeding section.

[betty]

I did wonder where to put it - it's a bit of a cross-over - but went for behaviour.

[ninestone]

I would note that our two sometimes come out immediately and sometimes not at all (or not for a while if I'm doing something that takes some time). I've wondered if it depends on how sleepy they are? The more tame they get the more it seems to happen. Maybe they just know who it is and so aren't so curious.

[Shooting Star]

Are they spotted? Since spotting also affects things in the brain, spotted gerbils have been known to sleep particularly deeply.

Sent from my HTC6500LVW using proboards

[betty]

Interesting about the spotting, but no. They are not from my spotted line - but they are 2 x PEW and 1 Sapphire. The two siblings were a PEW female and a Sapphire male.

The mother was a terrible mother so I was wondering if there was anyone who had had an avid pup-eater like her who they had kept for themselves who had shown other 'odd' behaviours?

It might just be a one off with her of course. Just seems strange.

[ninestone]

"avid pup-eater" ?!

<shudder>

[betty]

I know - she was working through them like clockwork at one point - I wondered if she would ever stop! I did actually ask on here or somewhere at what age a pup would be too old to eat as her litter of 8 got smaller and smaller...

The answer turned out to be 3 weeks - unless she was just sick of eating them by then? She didn't eat the remaining 2 that are with her today - but the other 6 were lost.

As were a further 5 from her first litter