Gerbils eating very little?

[g]

I feed my gerbils a mix of Vitasmart gerbil food and Ox Box gerbil food but it seems like they don’t like most of it.

I feed two tablespoons a day (I have two gerbils) along with fresh veggies.

I usually scatter feed but this week I put two tablespoons in a bowl and monitored it for three days. I didn’t add any new food mix, although I provided fresh veggies and sprouts each day.

It’s hard for me to see any noticeable difference in the amount of food from day one to three. Are my gerbils picky or so gerbils just eat a tiny amount? For whatever it’s worth, I saw one of my gerbils eating an Ox Bow pellet today.

(I have pics but it seems hard to add them to posts here.)

[Markpd]

You can see how to add photos here - gerbilforum.proboards.com/thread/33078/post-photos-2018-on (in the forum headers of all boards here).

I feed my boys 7g/day each, + a few treats and a little veg. They do tend to have some feed left over, so occasionally I feed them less so they catch up!
The food I use is a mix of seeds (Erin's ark food, if you wondered). No idea about your food I'm afraid.

[barryozzy]

I had to get the Oxbow Garden Select pellets one time, because a friend who was allergic to peanuts was going to feed them while I was away. They did not seem to like it either, only ate a little when they got hungry. They were very happy when I got back and switched them to my usual Kaytee food, they went back to happily eating all of it. But I don't know if there was a particular reason they didn't want the oxbow or if they were just being picky, 

[sparkbubble]

My last gerbils didn't touch oxbow for three days until finally they broke and then ate it. They got used to it.
THey'll eventually adjust if they are hungry enough, but if you don't want to wait that long...

When I give my gerbs veggies, I make a sort of baked treat with ground oxbow as a flour base and oats, carrots, apples, and bananas in 1/8 teaspoon portions. If you could cut back on the vegetable part (maybe 1 part vegetable to 5 parts food?), you could maybe make a sort of 'lab block.' The right gerbil food will still the dominant part of the 'treat' but the flavors of the other stuff might convince them to eat without selective feeding. this might adjust their palates until you could even stick whole pellets into the treat as you wean them off. Most gerbils love sugar. Too much will make them fat though, so don't do this for too long. I use oxbow to dilute their twice-a-week veggie portions to prevent from overloading them with water and sugar. (if your gerbs don't like vegetables or fruit, this won't help, sorry).

[g]

Thanks for all the great tips, everyone. I may try to stick it out longer to see how they act with more days to consider the food. I was feeding Power of 5 pellets, too, and they don't seem to touch those, either.

I know they eat, because I've had them since September. And I'll see them nibbling on a seed or pellet once in a while when I happen to catch them in the act. But so much food seems to go to waste. I'll test it some more.

[Markpd]

Hmm, not sure why you'd want to stick with food they don't like, except to finish off what you have I suppose.

[g]

Jan 8, 2022 16:47:36 GMT -8 Markpd said:

Hmm, not sure why you'd want to stick with food they don't like, except to finish off what you have I suppose.

These foods are among the mostly highly recommended foods available in my area. The other brands are not as well known.

I'm feeding Vita Smart, Power of 5 and Ox-Bow, which are generally highly regarded from all the research I've done. This is on top of fresh vegetables and fruit, sprouts, dried mealworms and occasional treats of millet spray and pumpkin seeds for training and taming. I also sprinkle dried edible flowers in their cage on occasion.

I'm asking this question because I'm new to gerbils and I don't know whether my gerbils just hate everything being offered to them, or, whether gerbils generally eat so lightly that it takes them time to work through their food. I'm used to feeding my dogs and my bird, where it's very obvious how much they've eaten each day.

It's disappointing that all you can offer here is an implied insult and not any actual concrete advice or information about how you feed your gerbils.

[Markpd]

I beg your pardon?? I didn't imply any kind of insult! It was more of a question, (although I missed out the '?'), and I asked that because you said you were going to stick it out, with no hint of anything changing. It seemed odd to me that you were going to stick it out, even though they didn't like it. Perhaps you didn't mean to imply indefinitely, but that's how it came across.

And I did offer a little advice in my 1st post, I mentioned I feed my boys 7g/day each, perhaps it would have been more useful to say 1/2 a soup spoon each per day, but it still gave you a rough idea.

And as for your current food, re research and recommendations, totally fair enough. I never questioned why you choose those beforehand, I'm not familiar with ox bow or vita smart so couldn't comment on those, but the rest sounds like a good diet .