Deaf gerbil

[angel]

I believe one of my older gerbils may be deaf. I don’t remember exactly what made me suspect it in the first place but to test it I picked her up and made sort of a loud chhh sound to see if she would fold her ears back. Nothing. Her sister did fold her ears back when I did the same test on her.

Could this indicate deafness?

Are there any other tests I could do to try and confirm with greater probability that she is deaf?

What causes deafness in gerbils?

I also noticed she had lost some weight recently, maybe those two things are correlated?

[LilyandDaisy]

I knew a deaf gerbil once. Yes, the main sign would be not responding to noises like other gerbils would. You can try clapping to see if she reacts at all (not that I would normally clap at a gerbil but as a one off test it's fine). Deaf gerbils might also seem unusually calm or bold because they don't hear all the little noises that other gerbils run away from.

The gerbil I knew was deaf from birth, as far as I'm aware (he wasn't mine but I used to look after him often) since his deafness was caused by the extreme white gene, and he also had a head tilt.

A gerbil might also be deaf from birth for much the same reasons as a human might: mainly abnormalities in the brain or structure of the ear.

I've haven't heard of a gerbil becoming deaf later in life, but I suppose it might be possible if there is some disease of either the inner ear structures or the brain. Gerbils are also quite prone to an inner ear growth called a cholesteatoma which can cause hearing loss due to obstructing the ear canal.

Gerbils can often become more laid back with age which might result in them reacting less to noises, but you would expect the ears to move at least if they hear a loud noise.

Since she has lost weight as well, the two things could be connected. It's possible that if she had an ear or neurological issue, she might have some nausea which could be causing her to eat less (gerbils can't vomit but it's possible they might still experience nausea). But almost any disease could cause weight loss if the body is under stress. I would probably consider a vet visit to see if there is anything that can be detected and hopefully treated.