Gerbil babies

[Shina (guest)]

Emergency, please help!
i am a first time owner of gerbils- i just got two last week, and they're both girls named jack and yuma. from the same tank at a petstore called pet bazaar
I keep them in a large aquarium with wood chips in the bottom to burrow in, and give them treats a few times a week, and they get toilet paper cores to chew, and have chew sticks in the tank

they got along very well, and would groom each other some times, and snuggle while sleeping

however last night one of my gerbils, yuma started to have babies
She was fat, but i never considered she was pregnant- the store must have sold her to me pregnant

the other gerbil in the tank, jack,  got the first baby that was born, and chewed its face off, effectively killing it- i separated them, but left yuma in the tank, and had to put jack in a critter trail habitat i used to use for hamsters- i know its not good for her, but its temporary holding till i can get another tank

what should i do? is it safe to put them together? Do i need to do anything special for yuma and her babies? Will i ever be able to put Jack and Yuma in the same tank again?


last night when i looked in, there were 5 babies (alive), but she may have had more since then, i'm not really sure what to do!
please help!

[Shina (guest)]

Oh- also i give them crickets twice a week
is it safe to give yuma a cricket while the babies are in there?

i had hamster babies a while back (similar situation) and i had to give the mama some extra protein (bits of cooked chicken, and boiled egg- a little milk every now and then)

also i think my tank is either 10 or 15 gallons- is that big enough for gerbils?

[t1gg3er]

You're pretty much in the same situation we were in a few weeks ago except both ours were supposed to be boys & we didn't discover the pups until they were about 10 days old & came clambering out of the nest. By that time mum & dad had already mated again - our 2nd litter are now 3 weeks old.

Don't put Jack back in with Yuma - she's likely to attack the rest of the pups. From what I've read, it will be hard work but Yuma should manage fine on her own.

You could try to reintroduce Yuma & Jack eventually but it'd probably be easier (assuming you have 2 girls in the litter) to leave one daughter with Yuma and introduce another to Jack using a split tank.

The most important things we learned were to make sure mum has a constant supply of fresh water (they drink a lot more when nursing), make sure her diet is high in protein (we gave Gizzy sunflower hearts & meal worms) and try not to disturb her or change anything in the tank for the next few days other than taking out anything that could hurt/crush a pup.  She'll do a great job - they're amazing parents.

Also, spend time on here reading, learning, asking questions. We've learned so much & other people have been really helpful with our dumb questions

Most of all, once you've recovered from the shock, enjoy the experience. We'd never have deliberately bred gerbils but now it's happened we wouldn't have missed it for anything.

Others will be more experienced to advise re the crickets & tank size - I think 10-15 gallons is just about ok for 1 gerbil so ideally you could do with something bigger in the long term, but not to move her into right now.

[betty]

Also, I would check the sex of Jack as he may well be a male, in which case you can never put him back with Yuma as they will have pups for the rest of their tiny lives? And similarly to what t1gg3er said - you can put in one of the male pups in with him (or a female with 'her').

Hows mum doing by the way - and have you found Jack a new tank yet?

[Shina-K (guest)]

I'm 100% sure jack is female. it turns out she was pregnant as well and she's raising a pup in her habitat now.
They both are in aquariums now, and Yuma ended up having 5 babies aside from the one that jack killed.

Jack had 2 babies, but one has disappeared. so now shes raising just the one.

[betty]

Crikey, you have certainly had a shock entry into the world of pet ownership! No doubt your gerbils have had a bit of a surprise too (new home then suddenly pups and being split up...)

Lets hope the pup that Jack had is a female and so they can stay together as a couple for ever. As for the other 5, if you are lucky you will be able to keep one female with mum and home the other 4 back to the same pet store or friends.

Obviously we are here for any questions, but best leave the mums to it for a week or so themselves, and make sure that they absolutely have fresh water everyday and that you top up their food with some high energy additions like sunflower hearts, peanuts, pumpkin seeds and meal worms at least until the pups are 3 weeks old as they will start to to eat for themselves. Lactating is a high energy process and in this warm weather the mums will use up a lot of water making their milk.

Fingers crossed for the single pup - they sometimes don't do so well on their own, but if you leave her to it and make the changes as above, the little one might just make it. I have had a single pup twice from the get go and they made it.

[t1gg3er]

Wow! Sounds like there was a very busy little boy in the tank with them before you bought them. Hope all the babies do well

[shina (guest)]

The babies are all doing well still, they're about a week and a half old now. The 5 pups in with yuma all have nice coats now and look mostly like her with shiny black fur. I dont think they've opened their eyes yet though.

Some of them have little white spots on their paws and/or chins like their mama does too (its really cute). They've begun to squirm around the tank in like a funny wiggly crawl now.

Jack's baby is getting bigger too and i think it's going to end up having tan fur like she does, since it doesnt look nearly as dark as the other babies did when they were the same age.

I went to the pet store again and bought some vita-drops to add to the water, and ive been keeping the moms on a high protein complete mix of gerbil/rat food.

I also give them bits of dried fruit treats from time to time and some dried yogurt drops i got in the rodent isle to keep them on a varied diet.

The babies are all still nursing, and i think all of them are crawling.

I'm still curious though if i can feed jack and yuma live crickets while the babies are in there, and also if i can give them dust baths while the babies are still nursing. Also, is it safe to pick up any of the babies yet?

unrelated question also
i signed up for an account here a while back, but it says its still waiting for staff approval and its been about 2 weeks now, how long does that usually take to get staff approval?

Thank you for helping me out along the way also! I found a friend who will take two of the babies, and also i have extra tanks for when the babies are big enough to be segregated by gender

[betty]

I wouldn't put live food in loose with the pups, and a dust bath is fine.

Some people handle their pups from minute 1, others wait until their eyes have opened at around 16-18 days...As long as you distract the mum and have clean hands rubbed in their own bedding and you don't keep them out the tank for too long, you should be fine.

Just beware that babies can suddenly jump (any age up to 4 months really) so always fully cup them in both hands or in a tub first and then get them over a raised surface as soon as possible, don't stand upright with them to look at them, have them over your lap or something at all times. Saying that they can still jump off your lap!

[Shina-K]

So, the babies are doing alright, They've gotten so big so fast though!
It feels like only last week they were just little beans.

I took some pictures so you all can see the big beans and also jack's baby (who i actually named bean).

imgur.com/a/19MZX#0

i had a question too though

jack used to be all a light tan, but now her back is a dark tan/brown
is that normal?

also, bean is much lighter than jack and has red eyes, is that common? will it have any negative affects on bean in the future?

[theia]

Cute! What colour is Jack? Is she the one that looks like an Agouti (brown with a white belly) in the middle pics? Gerbils tend to moult in a slightly darker shade every moult, especially if they are nutmeg (brown all over). Lots of gerbils have red eyes, two of my five have ruby eyes (they appear black until you shine a light on them when they show a dark red), it won't cause any issues beyond possibly slightly worse eyesight than a black eyed gerbil. If you want help with the colours of your gerbils then you can post some more pics of each of them.

[betty]

Yes, post better images and we can identify the colours for you - as all I could say from the images there was that you most likely have an Agouti or DEH mother with Lilac or Sapphire Bean, and all the other pups look just Black or Slate.

Also, gerbils feel safer and happier with places to hide and bedding deep enough to dig in. I presume your tanks look bare in those images just while you are viewing the pups for the photos? If not, then it might be nice to either give them a wooden tunnel toy or house and/or a few more inches of bedding so they can act out their normal behaviours.

Also, if you can take a decent image of Beans nether-regions - we can try to identify whether she is a female and so can stay with mum... And as they are around 4 weeks old now - you should be able to sex the others too as males become quite obvious when you have more than one pup to compare them to.