How to deal with my gerbils chewing on the cage wires

[sonar1313]

Hello all.  First-time gerbil owner here.  I have two cute little girls, Squeak and Squall, who seem to be pretty happy, healthy, and well-adjusted gerbils at maybe six months old, give or take.  They do have the annoying habit though of chewing on the cage wires - almost always a bit after sunset when I lower the light levels in the house.  They have a decent-sized cage at 25-ish gallons, plenty of bedding to dig in, and I always keep the cage well-stocked with cereal boxes and TP and paper towel tubes.  They also have wooden toys that I don't mind them chewing up, wooden chew sticks that they mostly ignore, and chew treats as well.  No shortage of things to chew on, and they do eventually go after that stuff (more often in the daytime) but at twilight it's always time to chew on the cage no matter how much chewing material is inside it.

I suspect they get a little bit of wanderlust at that time, so I usually put them in their hamster gerbil balls when this happens.  They seem to enjoy the ball because they'll happily spend 45 minutes or even an hour dashing around in the ball if I let them.  Good way to burn off excess energy.  But I can't do this for them every night, so I'm wondering if there's anything I can put on the cage to stop them gnawing on that.  Have heard lemon juice can be a deterrent.  It seems to work a little bit.  What about that bitter apple stuff that is supposed to stop dogs from chewing on something?  Have thought about vinegar, too, but I don't want the place smelling like vinegar.  Have also thought about putting their wheel right in the cage, but it would need some setup first (as I can't get the thing in and out of the cage without pulling the whole cage apart) and anyway I don't know if it would cure the cage-chewing, which I suspect is a desire to go out and explore.

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Hi sonar1313,

This could be stress-related or boredom... among other things, those are the two that first come to my head.
This could simply be a habit, and nothing more, since Squeek and Squall seem happy and healthy. (Great names!) but it never hurts to make sure, and whatever the reason it is something that should probably be stopped.

First of all, do you have your gerbils in a classic hamster-style cage or a regular gerbil tank? Gerbil tanks are just basic aquariums without water or fish and a different lid. A lot of people can mistake this and put their gerbils in a hamster-style cage.
If they are in a regular gerbil tank, I would assume the wire they're chewing on would be a tank topper?
Chewing on led wires will cause health problems long term, so if the wire is led, I would consider taking the topper off and putting a regular lid on until you find a solution to dissuade them from chewing. This is assuming it is a regular tank and the wire they're chewing is the topper.
If it's a hamster-style cage, I would recommend getting a a glass tank, as it will solve the chewing issue, and you may need to transition to the glass aquarium some time in the future anyways.

If they love the ball, that's really great and I would continue to let them use it as often as you can. As long as you don't have an issue of cats or dogs in the space, you can sit back and read a book, watch a movie, catch up on work, etc, while keeping a peripheral eye on them in the ball, if you simply can't sit for an hour every night without something else going on, whether it's due to boredom or productivity. Unless you see an unusual change in health, you can probably let them run as much as they want without worrying about them hurting themselves.
Do you have any wheel in their cage as it is? This is a good thing for them to have access to whenever they want to use it, as it can help with so many things if they need a distraction, or if they're bored or stressed. If you can find a way to keep this in their tank, (I understand from above that it's difficult) it could help with the chewing.

I hope this helped a bit, and that the chewing clears up

[sonar1313]

The cage is a wire cage on top that sits on a smaller glass tank on the bottom, so yeah, I guess you'd call it more of a hamster cage. I kind of splurged on it and hate to replace it, but have to admit that if I ever had to split-cage two gerbils, I couldn't easily do it with this one.

Only reason I can't put them in the ball every night is that I'm not always home during their "hyper time" every night when they start gnawing on the cage. No other pets, so they're fine for as long as they like. The funny thing is that during the day (on days I'm home) they don't show any signs of boredom at all. It's just in the evening. (The other funny thing is I think they know they're not supposed to chew on the cage, because I used to give them a little puff of air in the face when they did and now if they're chewing the cage they stop and look all innocent when I step over there.)

The cage came with a wheel but it was too small and they had zero interest in it. I've been considering: how to give them their big wheel that they like (especially Squall....Squeak shows minimal interest in the thing) without eliminating too much of their bedding area and giving them access in and out.

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

is there any way you could remove the wire section temporarily, and put a lid on top? It may be a habit that will break eventually if it goes away.

Ah, I see. blowing a puff of air in their face can work, I've used that myself (for different reasons) and it has helped, but I find it's only a temporary solution to the problem.
Very cute, too... White vinegar is safe for gerbils in moderation, so you could use that as you said in your last post, or if you know of a food they particularly don't like, you could rub some of the juice of it on the bars too, followed by putting something far more interesting in their tank.
A deterrent may be the way to go...

[Markpd]

sonar1313
I find my boys tend to obsessively chew or dig in the evening too!
Something I noticed a few years ago with my previous boys, after I temporarily removed the wheel from their cage (to cork line the running surface), is that they did more obsessive digging and chewing, especially Avon who loved to run on the wheel a lot!
I think that you're right that they do have more of a wonder lust in the evenings, in my limited experience this can often be largely satisfied by having a (decent size) wheel in the cage, their urge to run at least, is largely satisfied by that (with many, but maybe not all gerbils).

You mention they have plenty of bedding to dig in, how deep is it? If it's not deep enough to hold tunnels then that can lead to frustration and obsessive behaviours, e.g excessive chewing.

Good to hear that your gerbils are ok in 'hamster' balls, just keep a close eye on that because many gerbils are reportedly not happy with them (things might change with your gerbils there), which is why we recommend not to use them with gerbils. But if you're sure your gerbils are ok in them, that's ok.

Personally I wouldn't try the strategy of deterrents from stopping them chewing the wires (1st at least), as I think it would, a. be difficult, and b. probably not solve the root cause.

You didn't mention the cage size, but the best way to have a wheel in the cage and keep their full width and depth of bedding is by having the wheel on a platform, I had to make a raised roof to do it, see here.
If you can't fit a platform in &/or can't make a raised roof, you could partition off part of the cage like this, but the cage does need to be big enough to do that of course.
Just bear in mind if you do use a wooden stick barrier to do it, to fill in the gaps between sticks at the top (I didn't know at the time, but it can lead to trapped limbs otherwise!).
More general cage info here in our FAQ section.

Btw, because the old wheel was too small, that's probably why they weren't interested in it. With a bigger wheel they will likely be interested in it (not guaranteed though!), although with some gerbils it can be a few weeks or even months before they do start to use it.

TJ's Rodent Ranch
Chewing on led wires will cause health problems long term, so if the wire is led.....

Not quite sure what you mean here, I'm guessing a typo, but do you mean lead? If so that would indeed be bad for them, but I've never seen mesh or cages made out of that. And if it were, gerbils would be able to chew straight through that as it's quite soft!
But if you instead meant harm from physically chewing something hard over a long time, yea agreed.

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Jul 9, 2023 6:27:34 GMT -8 Markpd said:

TJ's Rodent Ranch
Chewing on led wires will cause health problems long term, so if the wire is led.....

Not quite sure what you mean here, I'm guessing a typo, but do you mean lead? If so that would indeed be bad for them, but I've never seen mesh or cages made out of that. And if it were, gerbils would be able to chew straight through that as it's quite soft!
But if you instead meant harm from physically chewing something hard over a long time, yea agreed.

Hi there! 

Yes, apologies, I meant lead, not led, lol. 
When writing it I meant the physical harm of wearing their teeth down or cutting their mouth, though toxicity would be an issue too! 
I mentioned it because of a past experience of mine, in which I got a second hand cage with lead on the wires. I don't know why anyone would do that, but perhaps they made it and didn't know? 
This caused problems, as you can imagine, in their mouth and due to toxicity. At the time, I actually had Guinea pigs instead of gerbs, but I figured it would cross over. 
Sorry for the confusion, I hope that helps clear it up  

[Markpd]

Yea no worries , that is bad!
How did you know it was lead btw?

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

Yea, it wasn't fun to deal with the aftermath!
We figured it out later after we'd dealt with it, a friend who was going to take it after we got rid of the critters, found out and told us.
Apologies, I realize now that it didn't have to do much with the original question.