sudden loss - now introducing two young males to survivor

[gerry22]

Hello from Milan and thank you in advance for the support you’ll be able to provide. I’ll follow with a presentation in the coming hours. 
Two days ago one of our two male gerbils suddenly passed away leaving us in destress. Now we're in the process of trying to introduce two youngsters (brothers, 8 weeks or so)to a 1 1/2 year old male.

We are using the  cage-within-cage method. We started this afternoon. The adult male, in his usual habitat, is jumpy, extremely curious about the smaller cage; climbs the sides, trying to find a way in. 
The two little ones, when finally spotted him, came almost to contact, smelling him and squeaking in some cases. But they were also buzy exploring their new cage; so, in my opinion they didn’t pay too much attention to him.

Now, with your experience, how should we proceed? The usual “7 days trial”, with frequent cage split and check for behaviors, must be followed in any case? Is the two-puppies X  one-adult formula going to work better than others?

Can we go on in the cage-within-cage option (with our older friend feeling at home) or we should transfer the trio in a more traditional and neutral provisional split cage container, even if it's not that big and confortable?

Please let us know what you think and other useful suggestion. Thanks a lot!

Josh

[betty]

Hello - and sorry to hear about your gerbil passing. It can sometimes come as a shock it can be so sudden.

As for the intro - the sooner the better really in the trio/pup situation. You need the advantage of age here. So basically, as soon as you are confortable to try them - do one more day of 3-switch split in a traditional small split-tank set up - and then give it a go. If you have your catch pot and a removeable split divide - noone can get hurt during the first intro - and if you think it isn't going well and stop it fast (and reset the divide in place) it won't do any harm at all.

At 8 weeks old - they are near the top of their age group for a trio intro - so ideally you want them all together within a week - 10 weeks old would be really the top end of an intro age based on previous members' comments of long term success.

Good luck!


Oh and the cage in cage way can work for some people - but it allows for toe-biting from one side and being wee'd and poo'd on from the other! So not ideal if you have a side-by side already - but a diagonal divide can increase the 'contact-zone' compared to a normal divide and reduce the wee factor!