what juices are ok for gerbils

[howlingwolf88]

I was wondering what juices are ok for gerbils?? would watered down apple juice be ok?? or if I made them a smoothie and added lots of water?? what about if I put cut up strawberries in their water bottle?
thanks
Ella

[Scott]

Not speaking as an expert, but I can't think of a good reason to give gerbils (or people for that matter) juice. We might like the taste but it's not really good for us, especially when the pulp is removed--take that out and you have mostly sugar water. Consider: 1 cup apple juice has 117 calories and 27g of sugar. 1 tsp of sugar is 4 grams, so that cup of apple juice has nearly 7 teaspoons of sugar. If you eat an apple, at least, you also get fiber. Water the juice down, and you get watered down sugar water.

If anything, this goes double for gerbils, which are desert animals so water is less a part of their daily diet than it is for us and so wouldn't be a source of their nutrition. We all like to give our gerbils the occasional treat, but it's the "occasional" that's the word to focus on. As with humans, our goal should be to minimize dietary sugar.

I also wouldn't put cut up strawberries in their water; in a day or so it'll get moldy. This is true for any non-refrigerated juice, watered down or not: it's going to ferment, and we can't control whether that's with pathogenic organisms or not.

[betty]

I agree, fruit juices - although not directly toxic to gerbils - would be something that isn't really advised to give.

If you are making a pulp smoothie or whole-fruit puree (bulked out with veg) then tiny amounts of these - maybe frozen in TEENY drops - would be ok say once a week or less (as this is very similar to feeding whole-food baby food).

No 'treats' are good for gerbils though really - as they are all treats of course. Far better to find other things they like instead that are either more healthy or not even food - and rotate them well so they are always novel. I mean why would you introduce chocolate into a toddlers diet if they totally loved carrots - and why would you give them food to keep them quiet when an interesting toy would easily keep them entertained?

I have VERY demanding jirds and I have to be very creative every night with time-consuming entertainment otherwise they give me the stare!

[Scott]

If you make juice in a juicer that removes the pulp, then the leftover pulp itself would be better for the gerbils (and us) than the juice. Not that I would likely feed it to them.