Gerbils Still Shy 2 Months Down The Line..

[fudge8shyla]

Hey everyone, just after abit of advise wev owned our Gerbies for 2months now we brought them from a P@H store and they where about 6weeks old or so we reguarly play with them an give them treats wich they take from our fingers but its such a job to catch them to get them out the tank and then to pick them up to fuss them when we put our hands in the tank with a treat on they wont go on our hand to take it we have to have it at the end of our finger tips.. And when we hold them when there on the bed etc they try to hide or get away from us its like they just want to run away from us all the time its getting so frustrating because when wev watched others on Youtube there Gerbies are runnin all over them jumping in there hands etc..
I feel ours hate us but yet there so well looked after an lots of toys etc..
Any advise would be great on how to get them to be more friendly.. Thanks

P.s sorry for got to add that even when we walk in the room they run an hide away we have to stand for about 5mins talking to them an then they appear to see who it is .

[sparky]

I'm sure they don't hate you. Our gerbils came from Pets at Home too and it was quite obvious that they'd not had any handling at all. They were very shy of us, and still don't like being picked up. They did get used to us though. We avoided picking them up directly and that helped. We started using a little hamster house like this one


They were generally quite curious to go into the house and then I just put my hand over the hole and then pick them up. Now that is the usual way we pick them up for playtime. A jam jar or any small box would work just as well.

They became much more relaxed when we stopped trying to pick them up with our hands. Chasing them about the tank to catch them was stressing them. But they are friendly with me when they are out to play - they will sit on the back of my hand (not the palm), they jump up on my lap, run about in my sleeves and trouser legs, and they let me stroke them but they still hate being picked up in a hand.

And they still get startled if we stand up quickly or do something else to make them jump and they've now lived with us for 2 years

[belldandy]

its hard to tell sometimes being shy and timid is just the nature of a gerbil like i have breed and raised litters ware i interact from birth with the pups. even after holding and working with the pups from brith some rarely will always be shy and timid and they seam to never warm up. all you can do is keep trying to win the trust of your gerbils, hope they can come out of this stage, if not it can be kinda sad to have pets that are soo scared of you,but just know it dosent mean its your fault. good luck!

[ejw82]

We've had ours for two weeks now and they are still very skittish about being picked up from their tank so what I do is take the side of the wheel off which is on the outside and then allow them to climb out onto my hand which they will happily do in their own time. Once on my hand they are fine, take treats, play and run around.

I also put them back into the tank the same way unless I lift it onto the floor and they go back in themselves once they've had enough running around

[Kelli Powell]

I love my two pet gerbils one is really brave but the other one is very shy I got them from pets at home and still can't get one out of the cage so I really wouldent recommend getting your gerbils from pets at home