Pregnant female question

[moghedien]

I have a question for everyone - I just bought three female gerbils from the petstore (I would buy from breeders, but there aren't any near where I live) because they had good colors - a spotted/pied lilac (pied is hard to find here), one beautiful little siamese, and a schimmel(!).

However, I noticed something as we were driving them home - I believe my schimmel female is pregnant! Now, all three females are together and appear to get along very well, so I wanted to ask everyone's advice on this one - should I separate the schimmel from the other two? I'm worried about doing that because she wouldn't have a pal to help take care of the babies. On the other hand, if there's no male in there with them, will the other two help with the babies or is there still risk of attack?

Thanks for any help! ;D

[Ritzie/Admin]

I have had the same problem once! I hadn't checked their gender when I bought them. There were no problems with the adult females, but when the male pups form the litter became sexually mature the adult females started to fight! Probably because in a normal (natural) situation only the dominant female is allowed to breed! They had big wounds and I had to separate them!

Are you sure that your 3 females are actually all females?

[andrea]

providing they are all female, i believe that she will be ok with the other two and they will all raise the pups, just be sure to take the male pups out at 6 weeks old.

As Peter said you may wish to double check the sex of these gerbs, you cannot miss those testicles if you have a male in there!

Andrea ;D

[moghedien]

Thanks for the advice - yeah, I'm positive that they're all female (I double-checked once I realized that one of them is pregnant!). My guess is that the company the petstore gets the gerbils from ships them all together, and that the petstore separates them when they arrive.

I feel bad for her though - she's pretty young to be pregnant. I hope it doesn't damage her ability to finish growing. One way or another though, I'm glad I got her - goodness knows what the petstore would've done when she had her pups.

Plus, it's kind of like a mystery prize - I wonder what color they'll be! ;D

[queenofthenile]

Keep us posted on the colours. That would be a nice surprise to see some unusual colours or markings.

[moghedien]

Will do - I'm hoping to get some pics of my three new females up at some point too.

I'm thinking she'll have her babies within the next 3 days or so, judging by her size. I'm so excited! ;D

[andrea]

We like piccys!, especially of pups ;D

[moghedien]

Well... just as an update, my schimmel had her pups Saturday - 3 of them. Everything seemed to be going fine with her, the pups, and the other gerbils and I had guests over, so I left them alone for a while.

When I came back to check on them, one had a bit of a wound on his/her face, but I didn't think much of it - I just figured it had gotten stepped on or something. It didn't seem serious, so I watched them for a little while and left again.

This is the awful bit... when I came back, they had been cannibalized and were all dead! I was so incredibly upset. I suppose I should have removed the other two females when I saw one of the pups had a mark on its face, but when I watched them I didn't see any hostile behavior. It's so upsetting! It was really, really disturbing and gross, and I have no way knowing whether the other two did it or the mom.

I just feel so bad for the poor pups...

[andrea]

It is very unusual for a mongolian to cannabalize, but when they do its usually for a very good reason!. Maybe the pups had some kind of genetic problem that the mother knew by instinct. Don't feel bad its natural.
Our breeding female piper on the other hand leaves the nasties for me, she will never cannabalize and sometimes this can leave me with horride choices, take her current litter she had 7 one pup never grew from day one at 2 weeks I started to intervine with lactol, no luck in the the end the pups was a third of the size of its litter mates and had a laboured breathing it soon after died.

Andrea

[queenofthenile]

I know it is very sad Moghedien, but as Andrea said, they likely had genetic abnormalities. Don't forget that the father was unknown, so they could have been severely inbred.

[Pet store employee]

"My guess is that the company the petstore gets the gerbils from ships them all together, and that the petstore separates them when they arrive.

I feel bad for her though - she's pretty young to be pregnant. I hope it doesn't damage her ability to finish growing. One way or another though, I'm glad I got her - goodness knows what the petstore would've done when she had her pups."

I work at Petsmart and I know our store when we get in animals they are already seperated we only get females and as we are putting them in their cages we check the sexs. The animals are kept in isolation for a week. We watched them and make sure that they are healthy, not pregnant, and handle them for a bit so they are friendly.

We did have someone bring in a gerbil that was indeed pregnant and claimed to have gotten her from us along with three males which she said came from a different store. There were five babies from the first litter I adopted three of them the other two babies were adopted out to people that our managers approved of being good owners by having them come in a couple times and handling them. The Mom gerbil then had two more litters. Even though we seperated the males from her as soon as we got her. her the second litter sadly only two survived because Mom seemed to be stressed. The third litter I'm happy to say are doing great. They finally are opening their tiny little eyes. There are 10 of them. But, we think Mom is pregnant again. We can't figure out how. Anywho ... my point being is we do take good care of the babies ... we take good care of all the animals. You just have to go to the right pet store. Not all are bad.

[pooky]

when you say canabalized do you mean that they were partly eaten?

im not sure, but i think that gerbils will some times eat parts of an already dead gerbil to get nutreants and stuff that they need. but this situation doesnt go with that because they were pups and couldnt have already died. could it be posible that the babies died on there own because of a birth defect? can that happen ? i dont know. just an idea.

[doomgerbiluk]

there are a number of possibilities
1) she was stressed, remember in a short time she'd got pregnant, been shipped to a petstore, bought home by you and given birth
assuming she was a first time mum it isnot surprising if sheocouldn't cope
2) she was a more territorial mum than most and felt threatened by the other females
3) whe was NOT the dominant female. In a wild gerbil colony only dominant females breed. I have heard that if a non-dominant female has pups the dominant female will kill them
4) the pups were ill and died and the females cleared up the 'mess'

Now as far as I can see none of these are predictable therefore the loss of these pups is very sad but NOT in any way your fault. And btw giving her time to settle with the pups was very much the correct thing to do, I would certainly have done the same myself.

Enjoy your girls and good luck for the future.

[sweetie]

Hey Mag,

I am sorry to hear of your and your gerbils experiences . I *hear* that you are hurt and sad. It is a horrible situation and one you could not have forseen, prevented, or fixed it.

I hope that you are well and the gerbils are also. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us. We all benefit from shared experiences.

Please keep us posted.

[doomgerbiluk]

Well put Sweety
I hope your gerbils are all well and that you can overcome your shock and give them all the lots of love and attention
good luck for the future