gerbils being left alone

[olive]

in a situation where suddenly gerbils can not be fed for 5 days while away on holiday will they survive

[LilyandDaisy]

Gerbils often store food so it's possible they might have enough stores to last them 5 days but obviously it's not ideal. You'd also need to make sure they have enough water.

Are you able to give a little more context?

Ideally gerbils should not be left for 5 days but if it's a holiday it presumably wouldn't be sudden, so you'd be able to give them extra food and water in advance. The longest I have left mine without anyone checking on them is 3 nights (though I still prefer to avoid that if at all possible). If it's a holiday I'd recommend trying to get someone to check on them a couple of times during the 5 days.

If the context is that you might be suddenly and unexpectedly called away somewhere and unable to look after them for 5 days, you could make sure you feed them enough food that they can build up a significant store, and give them more than one water bottle so they have extra water. Perhaps see if you can make an arrangement with a friend or family member who can drop in and look after the gerbils in the event that you're called away.

[Markpd]

The trouble with longer periods of home alone for our gerbils (or any caged pet I guess) is not so much how food you can stuff in there (that's easy enough) nor how long a bottle/bottles of water lasts, but whether they continue to work. Water bottles, more so the check ball type (perhaps only that type??), suffer from air locks occasionally which means the water just stops coming out (unless perhaps a gerbil was very persistent!).

I normally leave 2 bottles in my boys cage anyway, so I think that's quite safe for 3 days, it's very unlikely they'd both air lock (only 1 is the check ball type anyway) in that time, and the remaining bottle would be more than enough for that period.
I think if I really had to leave them for 5 days I would have at least 3 bottles in there to be safe (or maybe 2 of the ball less type if I'd previously observed those never air locking, which I think is likely, but I don't know for sure).

And off the top of my head, other issues which could be a problem when left alone is if one or more of them fall ill, they declan, or extreme temperatures (so getting too cold or hot, unless you want to leave any AC or heating on!).