My gerbils arent suddenly getting along?

[vendlaparsa]

Hi! Long time no see ahaha, a lot has happend. 

To make it short:
-One of my last two gerbils died, the younger one. he was always a bit.. wonky.
-I got two new gerbils for the one that was left alone and they obviously had a slightly rocky start but then got along really really well!!

And.. thats pretty much all that changed since my last post if i remember correctly.

Now to the point of the post, which the title pretty clearly states; 
Two of the three gerbils i have now don't get along all of the sudden. I dont think its because of the terrarium being too small, since they really liked it before! It couldnt be because of bad bedding, i changed it once and changed back to the one i had before.. but i mean it could maybe be that? it's been a while since the change happened. 

They have fresh food and fresh water each day, and i play around with them. Everything was fine for a month or two, now its all gone crashing down?
The oldest one, Mold, is suddenly attacking Pepper, one of the younger ones. They got along well before, and it was all so so sudden. Their fighting has disturbed my sleeping for a bit now and i FINALLY got a slab thingy to separate them. Im sure it has a better name somewhere there... 

anyhow, im just seeking advice on how to approach this separation! I have three gerbils and im scared the other one will get lonely..

Any tips? Any specific reasons this might be happening?


Thank you

[Markpd]

Easy question 1st, the right name for a cage separator is a divider

Looking at your last post (just over 3 months ago), you mentioned you were getting 'a friend', I guess plans changed .

And unfortunately that might be the source of your gerbils troubles, although 2 pups will typically quite happily be split intro'd to an adult gerbil, when they grow up it's quite often reported that they fall out. Although typically (IIRC) the 2 younger gerbils will pick on the older one, not what's happened to you apparently!

That said, it's worth looking at other possible causes, you mentioned you've changed the bedding a couple of times, recently I assume? If so, did you keep back some of the old bedding? (I'm not sure offhand how much it's generally recognised to keep, so I'm going to ask other members and see if when can come up with a general recommendation (my boys are already separate, so it's not so critical, although I do keep some back, typically I chuck about 1" layer of their old bedding on top). 

If you didn't keep back some of the old bedding, that may have at least contributed to the de-clan, because when you remove all their old bedding you're also removing their group scent, which can mean that some or 1 member isn't recognised as a clan member.

Whatever the cause, you'll need to carry out a split intro again, and seeing as they're all grown up now it'll take longer to work (assuming it does), typically 2-4 weeks it seems.

Btw, how old are the 2 younger gerbils?

I expect betty or someone else will add more detail if need be .

[betty]

All very well covered in the previous comment - the only thing I might add to help explain it a bit - was that it may be that the older one was actually defending himself from the younger one - trying to get the upper hand as they start to notice the balance of power shifting.

Quite often in a trio - the two younger pups are related and already have their own power ratio (say big sister/little siter) with big sister being 'the boss' of them two.

When added to an adult, the big sister drops a rank (and is now BELOW the adult) - and some big sisters don't like that, and wait until they are big enough to win over the adult. If spotted early, the adult may try to beat it out of the big sister, making sure they stay Top Dog themselves. This could look like fighting - but at first it isn't.

However, if big sister doesn't go quietly - and starts to fight back - then the trio is at risk of a declan. This is often face to face fighting and they get wounds on their cheeks and necks.

It is possible that they may never go together again now as the two younger ones are already older and and adult to adult intro is always harder - however, as they have already been together, there is a chance it could work - especially if you splitting them up temporarily has allowed them to 'reset' their status. Ideally, one of the two fighting ones needs to accept that they aren't going to be Top Dog and then they can all live happily together.

If they haven't been apart more than the 48 hours since your original post, then perhaps this could be attempted without running a full split again, but with the enclosure taken right back to a thin layer of substrate and reduced enrichment so you can watch them closely and easily remove one if the fighting picks straight back up.

If you are wanting to do a full split again, then I would suggest setting a 10 day minimum for this process, and ideally you would be hoping that your original adult accepts defeat for this to have any chance to work out. trios are quite trickey to guage - but can go either way to be honest.

One final note would be to ask whether they are definitely both male pups - have we confirmed their sexes on here with images? I only ask because one sure thing that causes males to fight for no obvious reason - is the presence of a female.