Do you have to tame gerbils

[gerbilman]

I was wondering if it's bad for gerbils to not be tamed. What happens if you don't tame them.

[Thelodar]

As long as they live with another gerbil and are provided with a large enclosure and environmental enrichment I think they'd do fine without much or any human contact on a day to day basis. That said, if something goes wrong and you need to examine the gerbil, give medication, syringe feed, trim teeth, or anything like that you will have a very hard time getting it done, may be bit, and the procedure will be very stressful for the animal. For that reason alone I'd suggest you tame your gerbils, even if you don't plan on handling them a lot.

[betty]

If you are lucky enough to have a well adjusted gerbil then it doesn't matter how much you handle them, they are fine in the hand. They may try to avoid getting caught at any cost as they aren't used to repeated human contact. But if you keep them in a really large bedding-filled tank, then how can you expect to handle them often anyway?

Some gerbils however are very people-friendly and no matter how big the tank, they will answer to their name if called for a treat. Other gerbils are having none of it, but can still be caught and held.

However, if you get yourself a gerbil that doesn't like being in your hand in the first place, then you either need a smaller training tank for hand training and set a few months aside for hand taming, or you need to abandon all hope and get a nice big tank and a thick pair of leather gloves! Not ideal but at least the gerbil will be happy while it is healthy and will be living the gerbil dream...

[vexorg]

It depends how you define tame. Some of ours have gone way beyond tame, almost obnoxious. Impatiently sit waiting for you to put your hand in so that they can get a step up to jump out. Get excited/agitated as you go to open the cage, and force the cage open so they can get out. When out, try push your hand aside as it's in their way and they have places to go, then quickly look for alternatives to avoid you getting in the way of what they want to do.

One of that same group is very timid but tame, never puts more than a nose out the cage, never bites, never snatches food, always politely takes it (waits until you let go if it). So tame in a different way.

[ninestone]

It should be fine. I had my first pair of gerbils when I was a kid, but I didn't know much about them since there weren't many resources and no such thing as the "Internet". I also had hamsters, some of whom were quite bitey. So seeing how the gerbils tore through thick cardboard with their teeth, I was frankly terrified of being bitten by them so they never really got handled. To clean the cage I would catch them in the plastic running ball we had. However, they (a pair of girls) did just fine and lived between 3 and 4 years.

Now that I have a kid, and all the great resources to research rodent pets online, we got a pair and they have been handled pretty regularly. They're not bitey either.

So, I don't think it's "bad" if they are not tamed. However, it would be good to get them out of the cage to have a run around a bathtub once in a while even if you don't tame them. At least once a week, twice preferably. You just get them to climb into a box to move them between cage and play area (bathtub) so they don't have to be hand-tame.