Help with biting gerbil

[emmab]

Hi, we got a pair of gerbils last week, both girls. One is settling in nicely, we had her out today and she was calm and interested in sniffing round our arms and seemed settled with us, so it's looking like she's going to be ok.

The other one however, likes to bite, every time we've given her a finger to sniff she's bitten it, she bites everything, clothes, fingers, everything!

Can anyone think of anything to help?

[crittercrazy]

Here is an article I wrote about biting: thegerbiljournal.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_29.html
Make sure it is indeed "biting". Maybe look at the nipping or nibbling pages as well.
Good luck!

[emmab]

Thanks that's really useful. I think maybe I phrased it wrongly, it's definitely more of a testing nibble than a bite, but it does hurt!

Is the answer then to let her get on with it and hope she stops? The only problem I have with this is that I have a 9 year old son who she's also nipped, and he doesn't want to go anywhere near her. (And obviously for myself, it does hurt!)

She does seem to do it to everything though, we introduced them to exercise balls yesterday and they got a thorough nipping too, as does my sleeve if i give her that to smell as well.

[crittercrazy]

How old is she? Young gerbils usually go through a stage where they nibble everything. (kind of like puppies)

Even if she's older though, you can still nudge her gently and say "No" or "Psst!" just to discourage her. I did that with both my litters of pups when they were going through that stage, and it worked well.
Just be careful not to scare her or hurt her- its a very gentle nudge and a relatively quiet "Psst" or "No".

[emmab]

She's pretty young I think, we got them from P@H and they've only been home a week. I'll persevere and hope she grows out of it! I'm pretty new to this so I'm at the 'oh god she's going to bite forever' stage! fingers crossed she'll settle as well as her sister.

[blanknote]

When I first got my gerbils (they were already 8 months old when I got them), one of them did nibble my fingers at first quite often, but has stopped doing it now. He does still sometimes nibble my fingers, but quite rarely. Just make sure that you wash your hands (with non-scented soap, if possible) before handling them, and hopefully she will get used to you so that she will stop nibbling.