Post by antler on Dec 27, 2022 11:53:23 GMT -8
Hi folks, hoping I can get some advice on handling a lone gerbil from some more experienced folks.
Lucky and Wild were my first gerbil pair. They're sisters, adopted from a rescue. They were about two months old at the time which would put them at about 2 years now. Unfortunately, over the weekend, Lucky passed away suddenly. Wild is now by herself. For the first day or so alone, she was understandably not herself. She hid a lot and was not very active. I'd say right now she's at about 80% her normal self. She is now coming out, digging, eating, etc. The main things that are different is she isn't very interested in me and isn't interested in running in the wheel. She and her sister were never super interested in human contact, but would at least come jump in my hand and eat a treat if offered, so that's what she's not doing now. But otherwise she's more or less acting normally as of today.
I'm at kind of a loss on the best approach for her. On my end, I am perfectly fine either adopting more gerbils or not, so there is not much influence on the decision from my own opinion. I have always had a variety of small pets my whole life, so I expect to keep having them, gerbils or otherwise. I am mostly just trying to decide what the best thing to do for her happiness is.
I am definitely willing to adopt again if it would help her, I work from home so I have plenty of time to monitor a split cage setup. But my main reservations are the following:
1) She is already 2 years old, that is not extremely elderly for a gerbil but not young either. Would it be better for her to be alone at this point? Would it be more stressful for her to try to introduce someone new now? Or would it be more stressful for her to be alone? Would it be fair to a new gerbil to potentially have them lose her within the next year? To some degree I can only go off of averages there, since obviously she could die tomorrow or two years from now, there's no way to know. Also, as I'm about to explain, I wonder at what age you should stop trying, because...
2) The gerbil availability where I live is...pretty poor. It took months of searching to find Lucky and Wild originally, and I was extremely lucky to find a rescue. I never turned off the Petfinder alerts and in the last nearly two years I've seen maybe two sets of gerbils pop up within 100 miles of me. Right now the closest solo female gerbil to me is something like 160 miles away. This is just too far for me to travel to pick up a gerbil. And I wasn't even dead set on only adopting a rescue, my area (even if I'm willing to drive an hour or more) does not have a ton of pet stores, and they were all totally out of gerbils for ages. My closest pet store I've only seen gerbils in once or twice prior to now. I've never been able to find a breeder in the state either, although resources I've looked at tended to be pretty out of date. I can definitely call around, but I may not even be able to FIND another gerbil for her. It could take months, and months is a lot of time for a gerbil's lifespan. Which brings me to...
3) If I am able to find some female gerbils, is it better to introduce a pair of babies, a solo baby or a solo adult female? I know a lot of pet stores won't sell you a single gerbil (even if you assure them you have another), so this may also be an issue, but let's go with best case scenario, what would be the move there?
So that's where my thought process has been so far. I'm not sure if it's better to do all of this, and exactly how to do it, or if it would be better to just let her live the rest of her life alone and just try to keep her busy and happy. I'd love to hear some thoughts from folks that have been through more than one set of gerbils and have gone through solo gerbils, introducing new gerbils, etc.
Lucky and Wild were my first gerbil pair. They're sisters, adopted from a rescue. They were about two months old at the time which would put them at about 2 years now. Unfortunately, over the weekend, Lucky passed away suddenly. Wild is now by herself. For the first day or so alone, she was understandably not herself. She hid a lot and was not very active. I'd say right now she's at about 80% her normal self. She is now coming out, digging, eating, etc. The main things that are different is she isn't very interested in me and isn't interested in running in the wheel. She and her sister were never super interested in human contact, but would at least come jump in my hand and eat a treat if offered, so that's what she's not doing now. But otherwise she's more or less acting normally as of today.
I'm at kind of a loss on the best approach for her. On my end, I am perfectly fine either adopting more gerbils or not, so there is not much influence on the decision from my own opinion. I have always had a variety of small pets my whole life, so I expect to keep having them, gerbils or otherwise. I am mostly just trying to decide what the best thing to do for her happiness is.
I am definitely willing to adopt again if it would help her, I work from home so I have plenty of time to monitor a split cage setup. But my main reservations are the following:
1) She is already 2 years old, that is not extremely elderly for a gerbil but not young either. Would it be better for her to be alone at this point? Would it be more stressful for her to try to introduce someone new now? Or would it be more stressful for her to be alone? Would it be fair to a new gerbil to potentially have them lose her within the next year? To some degree I can only go off of averages there, since obviously she could die tomorrow or two years from now, there's no way to know. Also, as I'm about to explain, I wonder at what age you should stop trying, because...
2) The gerbil availability where I live is...pretty poor. It took months of searching to find Lucky and Wild originally, and I was extremely lucky to find a rescue. I never turned off the Petfinder alerts and in the last nearly two years I've seen maybe two sets of gerbils pop up within 100 miles of me. Right now the closest solo female gerbil to me is something like 160 miles away. This is just too far for me to travel to pick up a gerbil. And I wasn't even dead set on only adopting a rescue, my area (even if I'm willing to drive an hour or more) does not have a ton of pet stores, and they were all totally out of gerbils for ages. My closest pet store I've only seen gerbils in once or twice prior to now. I've never been able to find a breeder in the state either, although resources I've looked at tended to be pretty out of date. I can definitely call around, but I may not even be able to FIND another gerbil for her. It could take months, and months is a lot of time for a gerbil's lifespan. Which brings me to...
3) If I am able to find some female gerbils, is it better to introduce a pair of babies, a solo baby or a solo adult female? I know a lot of pet stores won't sell you a single gerbil (even if you assure them you have another), so this may also be an issue, but let's go with best case scenario, what would be the move there?
So that's where my thought process has been so far. I'm not sure if it's better to do all of this, and exactly how to do it, or if it would be better to just let her live the rest of her life alone and just try to keep her busy and happy. I'd love to hear some thoughts from folks that have been through more than one set of gerbils and have gone through solo gerbils, introducing new gerbils, etc.
, so I'm in no hurry yet).
), late 70s
.