Advice on older gerbil that will soon lose her partner

[bough]

Hi

We have two Gerbils, and we are planned to take the older one to the vets today as she has declined badly and does not look comfortable. We will have our other gerbil who is about 2.5 years old left, and we do not really plan to have gerbils past her time so would not look to bond with a young gerbil. She had lost her first cage buddy when young suddenly, so we got an older rescue gerbil and they bonded really well.

I am aware is is really hard to even try to bond an older female with another female and we were likely going to leave her and just give her extra attention as she has always been the more lively of the two. I was just seeing options if anyone has had any luck bonding two older female gerbils?

Thanks
Ian

[betty]

Bless you - what a sad day.

Either option is fine really. If you think she is a bold character and enjoys human interaction, then keeping her as a single could work for her. Gerbils can live up to 4 years though, so it can be a long time if they are the shy type - the more submissive gerbils do feel safer with a friend. Gerbils can change character after they lose a partner, so see how she goes before making it permanent.

Alternatively, I have paired up many older females together successfully - only non-mothers (mothers are a whole different kettle of fish). It can take longer to pair them up if they are in the 1-2 year old zone, but often past the 2.5 years they are much more calm and accepting of each other. That isn't to say it will always be a quick or simple split intro - but it increases the chances of success.

[bough]

Hi Betty


Thanks for your reply, that is good news that it may be possible

The current Gerbil is doing okay so far and seems very happy so that is positive and will give it a few weeks and see how she is then.

[betty]

Bless her.

Do let us know how it goes...

[tanzanyte]

Hi Ian,
I am so sorry you have had to say goodbye to one of your gerbils.
I'm glad your remaining girl seems to be doing ok on her own, that's a positive sign.

I can completely understand not wanting to get caught in a circle of bonding babies with older gerbils.
It's not an easy call to make, but it's good that you already have bonding experience as that certainly helps with future decisions.
It can be difficult finding older gerbils from the searches I've tried, although not impossible, but I have found you need to act very fast when you find one as they tend to get snapped up quickly. It took months to find a female to bond when we lost a 1.5yr female.
We decided to leave our bonded gerbil when our original female was pts. I spent more time with Hattie and put more enrichment in and she actually seemed content. Unfortunately she only lived for a few months before I had to have her pts.
We didn't have an easy bonding process with our girls which has shaped my future decisions, but our existing gerbil was an extremely difficult character.

We also worried about this with Max when we lost his brother last year. We felt he would be very stressed out by the bonding process. As he was already 3 we didn't want to make the remaining time we had with him miserable for him in any way, so decided against it. I spent an awful lot of time with him as he was very human orientated, but he still missed his brother so I guess I'd say it depends on the persona of your gerbil.