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Post by tanzanyte on Oct 5, 2020 12:40:45 GMT -8
I never imagined she could go downhill so much in a couple of hours. I know that if I'd taken Bubbles an hour earlier my daughter wouldn't have forgiven me, but that time will haunt me.
Vanilla has been out and made a huuuuuge mess in the play area with the new grass ball and hay and carrot house. I have hidden lots of toilet paper outside so that she has to carry it back in to her mountain and she has been busy already. I figure the more she has, the easier it will be to remove the marked ones. I bought a terracotta pot to put in thinking she may like to use that instead of the glass jar. We moved that out to give room for seveeal heat pads, and now Vanilla uses it in the play area. I didn't think about getting her a new den though. I shall buy another, unless I can find something different that will fit. She's still grumpy, but who wouldn't be in that situation. At least she is still going out and about and not festering inside. I shall try her with sultana's. I haven't before as I saw something that said grapes were poisonous, but then read other things that said they weren't - very confusing!
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Post by betty on Oct 6, 2020 2:38:23 GMT -8
Yes, the RSPCA said a blanket 'unsafe' to grapes because of the terrible and immediate effect they can have on dogs.
I have written to them and explained the issue with gerbils isn't as immediate and how I had been feeding sultanas/raisins/currants for years and years as a treat to all my gerbils - but apparently they have some massive process they need to do to change previous vet info - it isn't just a text swap - and they didn't have the money (and they certainly won't now for sure!).
It is a shame they are such a trusted source by some but quite a bit of their info on there has since been proven to be different - not wrong - but different options to what they say are either; now known to be ok; just as good; or even more effective.
Up to you if you want to use them - but a slither of nut will probably get similar results with most gerbils?
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Post by jal on Oct 6, 2020 7:24:01 GMT -8
When I last had gerbils around 15+ years ago I had no idea there was a possible issue with grapes and fairly regularly gave them half a grape with no apparent ill effects at the time or long term though I suppose long term effects are hard to prove or disprove. It was one of their favourite things to eat. I was pretty surprised to hear so many people, including the RSPCA, now say gerbils shouldn't have grapes at all. I haven't given my current pair grapes to be on the safe side but they have had sultanas.
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Post by betty on Oct 7, 2020 5:28:28 GMT -8
Grapes are sultanas - that's how we know they are safe. Good to hear you have fed them for years too with no obvious ill effects.
Long term effects of everything are hard to guage anyway as so many things could have contributed - like too many mealworms are said to be bad long term but how can we prove it was just these when so many people's gerbils who get fed them live into their 4s and many who aren't fed them only live to their 2s? I just don't think the science is out there to be sure of anything long term for gerbils. Humans however: we know long term issues of certain things - but we still do them anyway!!!
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Post by tanzanyte on Oct 7, 2020 6:20:39 GMT -8
Now that's interesting regarding the mealworms. Are we talking live ones or the type you can pick up for the birds that are very much dead? I sneakily gave the girls some of the birds supply previously as my daughter was completely anti - she can't deal with live insects and has to give them a massively wide berth at the pet shops. Even the thought of dead ones have been a no-no. We are getting 2 little boy additions, which granny arranged for my daughter. I've got another setup for them, however my daughter has made it quite clear that they are hers (I look after the girls and they're my little gerbies really). She won't want to feed the boys mealworms, but if they do well on them I can make sure they have some on the side, only I don't want to get the wrong thing.
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Post by jal on Oct 8, 2020 3:23:14 GMT -8
Grapes are sultanas - that's how we know they are safe. Good to hear you have fed them for years too with no obvious ill effects. I think I just wondered if the drying process changed them in some way 🙂. A bit like how beans are poisonous when raw but okay when properly cooked, but yes grapes in any form can't be poisonous to gerbils as some sources suggest or we'd know about it. Both my last gerbils died of scent gland tumours before their 3rd birthday but I think they're just common, especially in males? It is hard to know but I imagine the vast improvements in small animal care over the last decade (food, housing, enrichment etc.) must make a difference to their life span.
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Post by betty on Oct 8, 2020 14:45:40 GMT -8
Mealworms - both types - although they may lose a bit of their nutrition when dried - the figures online are quite variable.
And as for husbandry - yes indeed. I often wonder if people in general really even 'cared' how long they lived? I don't remember as a child (quite a while ago) with my many different pets, every wondering how long they lived or keeping a record of anything? Noone else suggested or encouraged it either (mind you if you saw the 'spare' cage someone once gave me for my first gerbil you would seriously NEVER believe it - although scale for scale it was no less spacious that the rabbit hutches of the day).
I certainly think now we are more 'accountable' for pets and so our husbandry has improved along with our need to understand them more. Rather than just having a small animal - I think we very much more enjoy our small animals now.
And diet-wise - unless someone does some serious dietary real life experiments with feeding gerbils, I don't suppose we will ever know of a way to find out if scent gland tumours are related to diet. There was at least one rat breeder who swore that the feeding (and non-feeding) or certain foods prevented tumours and almost doubled the average lifespan of fancy rats. Perhaps and experiment worth repeating?
People often want to treat animals with whatever they want and the average life span becomes accepted as X - whereas something like a degu or chinchilla that REALLY get ill with excess (any) sugar - their owners didn't accept that 'they all died at X of diabetes' - they set out to solve it - and now their very restrictive diet is seen as the only way to keep them. And their life span has been super extended.
Wouldn't that be amazing (and sad at the same time) if we found out that a food contributed towards scent gland tumours?
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Post by jal on Oct 9, 2020 4:56:00 GMT -8
It would be good to know what causes scent gland and other tumours. Like human cancers, it's probably a mixture of things, or bad luck, but they're so common I did wonder if there was more to it than just bad luck. Hope we find out one day.
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Pim
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Post by Pim on Oct 9, 2020 8:29:22 GMT -8
I thought that they were genetic. Like in hamsters improperly bred ones (or even properly bred) get cancers due to the overbreeding and inbreeding.
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Post by betty on Oct 10, 2020 9:20:17 GMT -8
It could certainly be because of breeding techniques over time - but there was no direct passing on of the tumours that I noticed in my clan from father to son, or father to grandson, etc so the pattern must be harder to spot.
Perhaps I can look back over my family tree and make new notes on them for a pattern - or if ther is another breeder or two out there can start keeping notes over multiple generations? Doing it over your own generations reduces the chances of it being something else either environmental or nutritional - as I am sure people in different clans feed and keep then under different conditions?
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Pim
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Post by Pim on Oct 10, 2020 11:19:49 GMT -8
would it be able to be generically carried through the females? just brainstorming, if a mama had the "mutation" and passed it to the offspring and then the males might not be able to pass it on? this is all just me thinking aloud but maybe something like that would be possible I'd have to read up on it.
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Post by betty on Oct 10, 2020 16:11:49 GMT -8
This is exactly the type of conversation I like - where you are looking at all possibilities out loud - as I find if you say something out loud, you then follow it through until you find out either it can't work, it might work or hang on - we might have something here!
I certainly didn't follow it through the female line in own my notes originally as the females rarely get it - but you are right - what if they can pass it on? How would we SEE that other than keeping in contact with all their offspring - or would that be the only way? I can certainly pull that info out of my same notes for sure.
Although even if I find a link between the mums and sons - how would the gene from the mum not go into and stay in the sons? How could the males be prevented from passing it on? Hmm???
Perhaps I need to draw a family tree with red circles around the known SGT and see if anything jumps out? Are there any other breedees out there who kept records of family trees? Perhaps I will start a thread on that too.
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Post by LilyandDaisy on Oct 11, 2020 15:32:55 GMT -8
It would have to be an x-linked trait to be carried by the females and come out in the males, similar to colour blindness. Very few women are colour blind because if they inherit one affected x chromosome, the other one can override it. It would be uncommon for a woman to have two affected x chromosomes. Colour blindness can't be passed from a father to his son, because the father contributes a y chromosome.
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Pim
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Post by Pim on Oct 11, 2020 17:37:24 GMT -8
It would have to be an x-linked trait to be carried by the females and come out in the males, similar to colour blindness. Very few women are colour blind because if they inherit one affected x chromosome, the other one can override it. It would be uncommon for a woman to have two affected x chromosomes. Colour blindness can't be passed from a father to his son, because the father contributes a y chromosome. yeah I don't know how plausible that would be though. I also realized that the trait could be recessive which is a much simpler answer but both routes should be explored. We started a new thread for this btw!
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