Is she blind?

[RitzieAnn]

My boyfriend (Eric) has recently brought to my attention that my little Kandice (LCP Golden Agouti) may be BLIND! Eric likes to stick his antenna into the bars on their cage, and they like to grab it, but Kandice doesn't unless it touches her wiskers. She also walked right off the top of a 10 gal and fell into the S.A.M cage below. It wasn't too far of a fall, but Kandice has never been a jumper. She was born in February, so it's not like she's really old. I hold a seed up to see if she comes, and she's usually always the last one. Eric thinks the blindness is a recent occurance. At first he thought she was nuts, because when she stands up, or even sits up for a few seconds, she sways off to one side. (It's funny to see) THen she'll catch her self and straighten out. Any other tests you can think of?

[whitmoregirl]

Uhh I've never had a blind gerbil but I sometimes hold mine up to the light and you can see the pupil - and it's usually flicking around looking at everything.
I don't know if it would help but it may be a start.

[meganb52]

well, on a larger animal we would do what's called the 'menace test,' where you advance your hand quickly towards their eyes without touching them to see if they blink, but I just tried it on my two gerbils, and it didn't really work with them I would just sit and watch her, maybe move things around in the cage to see how she reacts... I'm not quite sure what else you could do but the aforementioned light shining test, but that isn't always definitive, because the muscles that move the pupils are innervated seperately from the nerves that transmit 'sight' information to the brain... Sorry I can't be more help

-Megan

[RitzieAnn]

I've never really noticed it before, but sitting and watching her now.... Kandice does some pretty weird things that none of my other gerbils do (and I currently have 21, so there's a lot to compair to) I've had to do the eye test to a horse before- she got a fly stuck in her eye (OUCH) but you're right, it doesn't relly work with a gerbil....

[gerbilsrgreat]

What happens if you put her out on the floor in a blocked off room or something? Does she walk into walls or anything?

-Jeremiah

[doomgerbiluk]

OK the test won't work for two reasons
1) gerbil eyes look mainly up and down, rather than forward
2) sight is not their main sense

I do have a totally blind gerbil and the only real difference in his behaviour to other gerbils is that he doesn't notice if someone is ABOVE him as the others do. I have to be sure he knows what I'm doing before picking him up by talking and saying his name first.

I assume the gerbil is red-eyed. Red-eyed gerbils do have poorer eyesight, they do sway to try and focus on things (something my totally blind gerbil has never done). It sounds to me as if she is a partially sighted red eyed gerbil who happens to be slightly clumsy too. Your boyfriend is therefore correct that she is partially blind but it is not unusual nor will it affect her quality of life.

[meganb52]

Thanks for the input RitzieAnn--I ddin't know that about gerbils... You learn something new every day!

-Megan

[RitzieAnn]

She's an LCP Agouti. Her eyes are drak. But have you seen my new posts to my thread, "Keebler's super sick"? I told Sandy about Kandice, since that's where she came from, but Sandy brought it to my attention, that it could be a result of the things my jack-butt roomate did. I'll try the whole over her head thing.

Sorry, Megan, what didn't you know? I'm confused.

[meganb52]

Heh- I must've had a case of too much school that day, I meant to say thanks to Doom, because I didn't know about the whole gerbil vision thing. It sucks when you try to cram too much information into such a little brain!! My bad

-Megan