How do you deal with fighting males?

[mcweedman]

Hi, my husband and I just bought three males, two black and one tan, around the same age about 2 to 3 months ago. They were all getting along just fine, playing and sleeping well together. There was a little bit of dominance shown by our tan one, Chuck, but we just passed it off as this one was going to be the alpha. Well last night we found Chuck in the tube not wanting to come out or wanting to play. We finally coaxed him out of the tube and saw that he had bite marks and blood on his back feet. We found that his left shoulder was tore up as well. We were unsure as to who it was until my husband pulled out, Toothless, one of our black and whites and his white chest was stained with blood and his nose had blood crusted on it. So we separated Chuck from the other too and kept them apart for a couple of hours then we checked on them later and the other two were doing alright and Chuck was resting ok. Around 6am we put Chuck back in with Toothless and Obi wan(our other black and white) and they did ok. Chuck ran up the tube and stayed there with his little head poking out but not fussing or biting, Toothless just went over to sniff him and just put his head in the tube with him. They just sat there like that for a half an hour. then I took Chuck out and put him in box again, because I couldn't supervise him. Around 12pm I put Chuck back in the cage and he and Toothless just went at it and went at it hard. I tried to separate them with a stick but when that wasn't working I scooped them up and then they turned on me and one bit me on my one finger and I screamed and accidentally dropped Chuck(he is just fine) and then he turned on my two year old and bit his foot. Then Toothless turned on me and bit into my other finger and wouldn't let go, I didn't know what else to do but grabbed each side of his cheeks and like you would do with a baby squeezed gently until he let go, once I got him in the cage and closed the door I scooped up Chuck and he bit me again in the finger that Toothless was just biting, and got him in the separate box. After I got my bleeding stopped and my wounds cleaned up, I went back to check on them. They were pretty tore up both of their left shoulders were bleeding(Chuck's was again). I guess my question after all of this is, Will they have to remain separate? Will Toothless and Obi turn on each other? Will getting a pup for Chuck help keep him from being lonely? Is there anyone that can give me advice or tell me I should have done something different? Thank you for the advice and the help in advance.

[eleda]

for future reference, after two gerbils have fought and drawn blood, do not put them back together without a divider to keep them from doing it again. they tend to do that all-is-fine-getting-along-OH GOD THEYRE KILLING EACH OTHER-thing. hard to predict what will happen. but since they've fought continually, and they basically both want to be boss gerbil I would say they will probably fight again in the future.

also, you can't introduce a single gerbil to an already formed gerbil clan. i don't know if this really counts as that situation or not, but it's worth mentioning. introducing 1 gerbil to 2 gerbils always ends in tears

what i've heard some people do is remove the aggressor (in this case apparently Toothless (ironic)) and leave the two more docile ones together and see if they can get along. if they do, then a new naturally submissive gerbil is found to buddy up with the removed aggressor.

that said, keep in mind that you cannot put chuck straight back in with obi-wan if they have been apart for 24 hours or more. also, be prepared to observe obi-wan with chuck for several hours if you do decide to go that route. if it has been longer than that you'll need to split cage them after giving them some time apart.

no matter who you decide to re-bond with a new gerbil, you're probably fine with an adult. the advantage with pups is that if the existing gerbil is old, the pups will still have each other when he passes. you should be able to split two adult males without much trouble, especially if you are able to find one that is naturally submissive. so, splitting him with just one pup would be kind of unnecessary, i think.

one more thing, whoever you decide to remove from the clan, observe him by himself for a while (he'll need time to heal anyway) and see how he does on his own. some gerbils do better by themselves, though it's rare.

[mcweedman]

Thank you, yeah I found out not to put them together the hard way. (My poor fingers and poor gerbils) I just thought that since they were ok earlier this morning that it would be ok. I was definitely wrong on that front. anyway they were together at the pet store and were fine together for two months here with us. I don't know how long they were together before that. We think that Toothless(named by my 6y/o because he is black like the dragon from How to train your dragon) and Obi are brothers because they look almost identical. anyway, we keep switching the two around every few hours just so that Obi doesn't forget their scent. He does fine with either one. We did order a new cage and it should be here tomorrow. I think that we have decided to keep Chuck separate from the other two and if we have to we will be prepared to separate Toothless and Obi. I am just sad because they were all getting along and hanging out with each other and we would pull them out and let them wander around on the floor together and this kind of broke my kids hearts.

[eleda]

=( yeah, it's always hard when they de-clan. poor kids. how large was their enclosure? my boys had a minor falling out over too little space

[mcweedman]

it is a Katy critter two tier or two level. Is it possible that with this new cage and more room that they get along again? or has that ship sailed? basically I am asking if we would be able to attach the cages with a bunch of tubing? or would they still battle it out for dominance? I am sorry I don't mean to sound stupid but I have never had gerbils and my husband didn't have issues with his when he was a child. He had a male and a female and then they did have two litters. The only issue that they had was that when the second litter came the female turned on the first litter. Thank you for your advice.

[mcweedman]

When you say that yours had a minor falling out, Did you have to separate them? Were you able to put them back together?

[xovq]

I actually had something similar happen to my three boys a few weeks ago.

Clover and Chive stared fighting and tore up each others' neck and shoulders. Since Clover seemed a bit agitated around the other gerbil, Basil, I decided that he would end up alone in an extra 10 gallon tank I had on hand. Unfortunately, Clover was pretty down after the fight. He wouldn't eat and would sleep more often than normal. When he was awake, he'd just sit in a hide, not doing anything.

I ended up splitting their original enclosure (a Detolf, so 60+ gallon enclosure) with two layers of mesh (that's all I had on hand at the moment) with space in between and put Clover on one side and the other two on the other. Clover perked up a bit and was eating again, but Chive...

oh my goodness...

He was so mad.

All he would do was follow Clover around and chew or dig at the mesh. He was so persistent, he managed to bend back some parts of the mesh from yanking and it's not like it was a flimsy mesh. He would even bite me if my hands if they smelled like Clover. I put cardboard in front of and in between the double mesh wall, but that didn't stop him. I came home one day and the cardboard in between the mesh is all chewed up and splattered with blood because Chive bit Clover's nose. Luckily I had just finished up a bin cage and so I moved Chive and Basil in there.

I then decided to go to the pet store and pick up new pup and let him settle in while Clover's injuries healed. Once they were ready I sectioned off the Detolf so Clover and the the new gerbil, Peppercorn, were each had their own quarter section (half was too much space), and they took to each other within about day or so and have been happily living together without the split for the past week.

So now Clover is back to his normal self, Chive isn't angry anymore, my hands aren't getting bitten. Everyone's happy.

[xovq]

Oh and to answer your question, no, do not put them back together. Giving them more space will not fix the problem. Once they've drawn blood, it's best to keep them apart.

[eleda]

my boys only fought once and it was fairly minor. no blood was drawn. i separated them for about 2 weeks and then split-caged them back together again. i don't know how big a katty critter 2 level is, but the rule of thumb is about a gallon of space per gerbil. my boys didn't like being in a 10 gallon together, but did better in the 20. at this point its too late to save Toothless and Chuck's relationship, but I wondered if a space issue might explain the cause.

(xovq what a lovely ending to your story. my boys did the same trying-to-get-through-the-divider thing for a couple days at the beginning of the split, though they were a bit less bloodthirsty. i managed to brainwash them though =D)

[betty]

Unfortunately after that much blood and 'anger' shown, it is a definite no no for back together.

Without having experience with gerbils the only thing you really did 'wrong' was not having a pot handy when introducing 2 rodents you thought had fought. Never use your own hands (as I am sure you will never do again after your family's ravaging) gerbils are very territorial and once they get in the mood to get rid of a challenger, they just keep on the attack.

I would leave the aggressor (toothless) and Obi together and stop swapping Obi between the 2 fighters, that could just make things worse. Leave Chuck alone to recover (as he appears to be the ousted loser), and consider splitting him to a new friend at some point.

I don't think a cage can be too small when considering fighting, as when you introduce new gerbils in a split you are best to keep them in a small tank temporarily to make sure they bond, so small increases bonding to a certain extent. Smaller cages though will just show a declan quicker as the one being attacked has less places to hide before the final standoff. Challengers try to tell the other one to leave quite nicely at first, that's when you see one sleeping on its own upstairs or alone somewhere, but of course in a tank there is nowhere to go, so the challenger thinks he is being rude and is staying put, so he has to try harder to get him to leave....

[mcweedman]

Thank you all so much for the advice. This saddens me because we were hoping to buy a bunch of tubes and we wanted to let them run around in there cage and we were going to buy a second cage so that they could go from cage to cage. Do they do this often? Even after they have been bonded and were a clan already? and no I will never use my hands to stop a fight again. Even my father in law said to get some water and spray them or splash them if it happens again.(not with Toothless and Chuck) Will this happen with Toothless and Obi?

[betty]

Unfortunately, you never know quite when a declan is due - they sometimes just happen - sometimes with an obvious trigger like mixing scents, dominant one getting old or sick etc, and generally males are more sociable in groups.

It is less likely to happen if you leave the two as a pair as it would seem as though Obi couldn't have cared less who was the boss out of the other 2 so he is less likely to want to suddenly try to overthrow Toothless. However, saying that, gerbils don't follow our plans - they follow gerbil rules, so it is possible that if Toothless gets ill, Obi may feel duty bound to kick him out? But now you know the signs you would possibly spot this happening.

In my experience, it seems to be a 50/50 things with existing pairs - mostly unrelated gerbils, and often mothers and daughters. I have never had a father and son grouping declan, or 2 littermate sisters; everything else has gone at some point. But other people experience different couplings?

As for splitting up a gerbil fight - just have a pot/tub close by and totally cover up one of the gerbils with it. That way you have one of the gerbils safe in one place. While in the pot/tub it will be unable to hurt the other one again or run off into the bedding, and you can slide something under it (like when you catch a bee or wasp on the window) and remove it from that environment safely. If you squirt them, they may both run off and fight elsewhere before you can catch them or spray them again.

Also, the best way to get a gerbil to let go of YOU during a bite is to put its feet back on the floor so it knows it can run away. If you were hanging on to something 'evil' that could turn around and attack you and were flying through the air and felt unsafe - why WOULD you let go? All the while you have it in your grip - it can't hurt you. The water may work here by the effect of being more frighting than the evil thing it was biting? But then it might fall and run off...

Hmm?

A declan is always sad, but I have made loads of gerbils happy again by splitting them to a new friend..

[eleda]

theres no way to say for sure what will happen, but I find it unlikely. from your descriptions obi sounds like a chill submissive gerbil, so toothless won't have a reason to fight with obi. also if this is the cage you have, I'd say there actually is a distinct space issue that could have caused a declan. not enough space is a reason for one gerbil to want to chase a member off - in the wild or in captivity. some gerbils dont mind smaller spaces, but it is possible for it to bother them.

the reason small spaces are good for split-caging is because it forces the gerbils to get used to each other's scent and be near each other. but once they've bonded, you should give them more room.

personally I find Critter Trail cages to be unsuitable for gerbils. They tend to be small and have no room for the gerbils to dig (plus the issue of kicking out bedding) Critter Trail habitats have gerbils pictured on the box, and a pet store employee with tell you you should get one for your gerbil, but this is wrong. the pet trade doesn't care about what's right for small animals - particularly gerbils and birds. People equate gerbils with hamsters and so the company will sell more cages if they put both species on the box. unfortunately, this dupes a lot of first-time gerbil owners.

your gerbils will be happiest in a cage made from either an aquarium or a plastic bin with at least 3-4 inches of bedding for digging (the more the better, typically) I don't know much about bin cages, but there are a lot of resources on the site about building one. one thing I do know is that a plastic bin must be smooth on the inside without any sort of edges a gerbil could get their teeth around because they are fully capable of chewing their way out through the plastic.

I don't know how large the wire part of your current cage is compared to an aquarium, but you may be able to detach it from the base and use it as a topper. that way you can have the water bottle and toys up there etc. if you can't rig up a topper, you can find a mesh lid (usually in the reptile section). I have a water bottle that is flat on one side and has a bent spout so i've just lashed that to the lid. keeps it accessible, but out of the way. (also cut down on the possibility of the bottle getting buried and pressure from the bedding displacing the ball inside the spout and all the water leaking out into the cage)

i also agree with betty about not switching toothless and chuck around, if you've decided toothless will live with obi. since chuck will be living separately, it's ok for obi and toothless to forget him. (less stress for the guys too, poor lil hurt things)

I hope this helps.

[mcweedman]

Thank you all again for all the advice. Like I said I am a first timer and I know that they are children but when he had a hold of my hand my mothering instinct kicked in and I did the first thing that I could think of and gently grab his cheeks. it worked but I see what you mean and understand. Also we did get another critter trail cage for Chuck because after Tuesday night seeing what happened we just went ahead and ordered one. When we can I think I might mention the whole aquarium thing to my husband and maybe invest in a couple of those and maybe rig up something between an aquarium and a cage with tubing and such. We have(since reading everyone's advice) just separated Chuck from the other two and he is now in the new cage. I have them set up next to each other on the shelf. Is this a good idea? they can still see each other and smell each other but should I put them in separate areas or on two different shelves? Chuck seems a little agitated but that might be from all the trauma and getting used to a new cage. I put the food in there and then have left him alone to settle in.

Now another question is is if we get the aquarium and put the bedding in it to let them tunnel and burrow how big an aquarium should we get and how much bedding should we put in there? Also how often do we change the bedding?

And I will keep in mind to have a little container handy to cover one up if we have another fight. Although if it was like the fight the other yesterday there would have been no separating them like that they were in a ball all wrapped around each other that is why I picked them up. but I will not do that again.

and again Thank you so much for all your help and advice!

[mcweedman]

haha oh I just reread your post elda and saw that you said 3-4 inches of bedding.