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Post by flora7suzy4ever on Apr 12, 2018 8:42:13 GMT -8
It seems Crackers has gotten used to biting. You can try to discourage this behavior by gently blowing on his whiskers and repeating the verbal command 'NO' in a firm tone. Pretty soon he will get the idea and also associate the word 'NO' with being blown on (which gerbils dislike) and stop at the command. I don't know if that will work for every gerbil? It does for mine so you can try it to. My very gentle smaller gerbil, Flora, used to bite when she was a baby but I was able to discourage her and she's stopped for a long time. She did recently bite me very hard in attempt to grab an almond, but I understood this as a mistake.
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Post by oddball on Apr 12, 2018 12:30:40 GMT -8
If all else fails you can try to wear a pair of gardeners glove or some other kind of thick glove when offering treats. When Crackers goes to bite, you can gently wiggle your fingers/hand and add a form of discouragement. I had to do this a lot with my one boy Robin as his first reaction to everything was "Is this food? Let's test."
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Post by flora7suzy4ever on Apr 12, 2018 12:37:06 GMT -8
I also gently tap an excited gerbils snout and it will momentarily 'stun' the gerbil, which sounds worse then it is, basically the gerbil will just sit there with half closed eyes looking grumpy for a second. Like oddball said wiggling your fingers is also a good way to discourage them. I waggle my fingers in their face gently and they'll back off.
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