Post by Paige on Sept 27, 2023 14:04:54 GMT -8
Hello! I recently rescued a gerbil. She is about 2 years old and has lived alone the whole time from what I’m understanding. She was kept in a 10 gallon tank with a topper but there was hardly an inch of pellet bedding in her tank and nothing to chew on. The first night I got her and before I really understood what her tank needed, I set her up with a 30 gallon tank with roughly 6 inches of bedding. She quickly covered her hides and was digging at the corners a lot, but she didn’t seem scared of me at all. She would stand out in the open and watch me. She wouldn’t thump her little legs or anything. I now know the digging was because she needed more bedding. I’ve since split the tank so one side has roughly 10 inches of bedding (the white kaytee stuff, I’m drawing a blank at the name+hay and aspen) and I’ve hide some of her hides in the bedding toward the bottom.
There is a bridge to the other side where there are more hides, sand bath, water bowl, and I’m going to put her wheel on this side when it arrives. Every day I give her toilet paper rolls, new cardboard pieces, I scatter feed her food if she needs it, etc. She has endless chew sticks, blocks, toys, whatever. Except now she only comes out when I’m putting something new in the tank. She comes out to see what it is and then if she can she will take it into her hide. She hardly ever digs in her bedding. She mostly moves the bedding to the hides on the other side. And now when she sees me, she scurries off into her hides. I don’t know what happened! She seemed so curious and friendly but now she always hides.
I’m so sorry this is long. I’m just not sure if this is normal behavior because I’ve never owned a gerbil before, only hamsters. I’ve watched endless videos the last couple weeks to understand their behavior so I figured she would dig more, but instead she’s taken up interior decorating.
There is a bridge to the other side where there are more hides, sand bath, water bowl, and I’m going to put her wheel on this side when it arrives. Every day I give her toilet paper rolls, new cardboard pieces, I scatter feed her food if she needs it, etc. She has endless chew sticks, blocks, toys, whatever. Except now she only comes out when I’m putting something new in the tank. She comes out to see what it is and then if she can she will take it into her hide. She hardly ever digs in her bedding. She mostly moves the bedding to the hides on the other side. And now when she sees me, she scurries off into her hides. I don’t know what happened! She seemed so curious and friendly but now she always hides.
I’m so sorry this is long. I’m just not sure if this is normal behavior because I’ve never owned a gerbil before, only hamsters. I’ve watched endless videos the last couple weeks to understand their behavior so I figured she would dig more, but instead she’s taken up interior decorating.
