Gerbils Possibly Scrapping

[nutmeg01]

I have two,2 year old male gerbils who i bred and have raised. They are completely fine when in their gerbilarium but when i let them loose around my bedroom floor they are fine for the first ten minutes and greet each other fine but every time now that i let them out they seem to forget each other if they haven't met in a while or they don't recognise each other, they will get into a scuffle i have always split it up and no harm has been done but today clove had a mouthful of gingers fur and i put them back in their cage and they were fine with each other, grooming each other and now sleeping together (even though Ginger was still thumping quite alot when he went back in). I am now stuck on what to do with them because i want them to be able to get as much exercise as possible and although they have a wheel and know how to use it, they generally prefer to sleep or chew on the sticks and climb on their toys. I also have an exercise pen for them although they can jump out of it and the same situation occurs. Any advice would be helpful

[betty]

I had a pair of sisters who always did this in the run and after a moment of fiestiness they were fine in their tank afterwards. I found that it was always Boo who was doing the bullying, and she would also bully Belle back in the tank if Belle had been out somewhere by herself.

AND she would also bully Belle if she herself had been in the run and then I had secretly let Belle out on the sofa 'without her knowing'. She knew.

Luckily Belle was the quieter one and not so fussed about coming out, so I used to just let Boo out in the run all the time and she was fine that way. Belle didn't seem to put out by staying in the tank and I still handled them both at different times - it seemed that it was putting Belle down anywhere where other gerbils had been (ever) was the problem.

They were my only pair who did this, so I just carried on their way. They were a cheeky pair of girls and they stayed together until Belle died at nearly 3. Love them both.

[nutmeg01]

Apr 30, 2016 6:13:59 GMT -8 betty said:

I had a pair of sisters who always did this in the run and after a moment of fiestiness they were fine in their tank afterwards. I found that it was always Boo who was doing the bullying, and she would also bully Belle back in the tank if Belle had been out somewhere by herself.

AND she would also bully Belle if she herself had been in the run and then I had secretly let Belle out on the sofa 'without her knowing'. She knew.

Luckily Belle was the quieter one and not so fussed about coming out, so I used to just let Boo out in the run all the time and she was fine that way. Belle didn't seem to put out by staying in the tank and I still handled them both at different times - it seemed that it was putting Belle down anywhere where other gerbils had been (ever) was the problem.

They were my only pair who did this, so I just carried on their way. They were a cheeky pair of girls and they stayed together until Belle died at nearly 3. Love them both.

Yes! this is the exact problem I have, I also own their mother and sister and they are fine when let out so go out quite frequently and are always 100% but whenever I let the boys out, it always ends in the same way. Handling them is fine because they are close to each other or i have them back in the cage afterwards its just when they are out and about and can maybe smell other gerbils that clove starts to go mad scent marking everything. I have tried waiting a few days in between letting each pair out so that it does not smell of fresh gerbil when they are out but it does not work.

When it is my pair of boys concerned, it is always clove(the dominant one) who scent marks and goes after ginger it didn't used to be like this until about a year ago because their dad passed away aged six and until then, he was the boss of the two of them.

[PurpleSheep]

We also had a pair like this, whenever they were out for more than 5-10 minutes, the dominant one would start scrapping and chasing the other, either when they were still out or when they got back to the cage.

Unfortunately, the only solution we found was to minimise their out of cage time. This made cleaning out tricky, as we'd have to leave them in the cage for as long as possible and give them lots of old bedding to make sure the scent was still the same.

The dominant gerbil picking the fights was very territorial generally, we also had issues whenever we added a topper to their cage. They even drew blood a few times but we also managed to reintroduce them and once we became aware of what triggered the fights, we were able to avoid these situations and they lived happily for months until sadly one of them passed away.

[nutmeg01]

Sorry for the late reply but I feel that we're going to have to resolve to the same conclusion of letting them out less often because I really don't want it to degrade into something permanent