Do we bring some of the old bedding over during full intro?

[ralliart12]

I didn’t see this specific "aspect" posted in the FAQ so was wondering if this is subjective.

I do a full clean of my gerbil’s enclosure every 2 weeks. In the event I’m doing a split cage typically I’ll time it such that the swapping interval happens a couple of days after a full clean, where I feel the incumbent gerbil has had a few days to infuse his scent into fresh bedding.

Say I start on Day 3 after a tank clean. That gives 12 days of swapping. On Day 14, I’m supposed to clean the tank & perhaps do the divider-less intro.

Qn1: Assuming the intro goes well after I remove the divider, do let the pair stay in the existing bedding for a bit longer? How much longer? Another week?
Or, once they get acquainted with each other with no incident, I can carry on with the scheduled enclosure cleaning on “Day 14”?

Qn2: Be it I drag it out for Qn1(or not), when performing the enclosure cleaning after a successful intro, do I bring a handful of the old bedding over & mix it into the new neutral-smelling bedding? Or really leave the tank fully neutral-smelling?

[TJ's Rodent Ranch]

I find the most successful circumstance in my case, was change the bedding afterwards, so they could explore it together and establish a new scent together, but throw in handfuls of bedding from each side of the tank (so their scents are equally mixed). As far as I understand, the most important thing is to make sure that nothing smells enough like one specific gerbil that they can claim it as 'their territory'.
I hope this helped, someone else will probably be able to provide more insight into this topic.

[LilyandDaisy]

I always keep the same bedding after the introduction. The reason for that is because it should be full of their mixed scents at this point, and throwing it away and replacing it with new bedding risks destabilising the new and fragile bond.

Typically about a week or a few days after the introduction, I will start gradually adding new bedding as well as removing any obviously dirty bedding (split tank bedding can get dirtier than usual because the gerbils usually don't have sand baths and platforms etc to pee on), but I leave any bedding that looks and smells clean. I do the same with normal cleaning. I find I never need to do full cleans unless there are mites or something like that. I just spot clean, and then once every few months I will go through the entire tank, sorting the bedding into clean to be kept, and less clean to be replaced, and getting rid of the dust and debris that builds up at the bottom of the tank. But it does depend on your cage setup and your own gerbils' habits whether that will work for you.

So in the end, the bedding used during the split tank would mostly end up incorporated into the bedding in the main enclosure that the gerbils end up in.

As mentioned above, unless there is a reason all the bedding needs to be thrown away (like mites or illness), I would always keep some old bedding back anyway, whether the gerbils are recently introduced or not, but it's even more important during the first few weeks after an introduction.

[ralliart12]

Dec 6, 2023 7:34:50 GMT -8 LilyandDaisy said:

I always keep the same bedding after the introduction. The reason for that is because it should be full of their mixed scents at this point, and throwing it away and replacing it with new bedding risks destabilising the new and fragile bond.

Typically about a week or a few days after the introduction, I will start gradually adding new bedding as well as removing any obviously dirty bedding...

I understand, i.e. can continue to clean the enclosure after the intro, but at no time should the bedding be startling and starkingly neutral.

Dec 6, 2023 7:34:50 GMT -8 LilyandDaisy said:

...and then once every few months I will go through the entire tank, sorting the bedding into clean to be kept, and less clean to be replaced, and getting rid of the dust and debris that builds up at the bottom of the tank. But it does depend on your cage setup and your own gerbils' habits whether that will work for you...

For my case, since I live in a country with relative humidity of 90%, my full-tank clean is more often, i.e. I'm worried about mold harbouring in the bedding.

Dec 6, 2023 7:34:50 GMT -8 LilyandDaisy said:

...but I leave any bedding that looks and smells clean. I do the same with normal cleaning. I find I never need to do full cleans unless there are mites or something like that...As mentioned above, unless there is a reason all the bedding needs to be thrown away (like mites or illness), I would always keep some old bedding back anyway, whether the gerbils are recently introduced or not, but it's even more important during the first few weeks after an introduction.

Yeah, I believe in this too, even for my lone gerbils. My concept is I dun wanna encourage the gerbil to exert its scent gland to mark everything all over again.

[LilyandDaisy]

Dec 7, 2023 2:45:42 GMT -8 ralliart12 said:

Yeah, I believe in this too, even for my lone gerbils. My concept is I dun wanna encourage the gerbil to exert its scent gland to mark everything all over again.

Yes, I think it can make them stressed if they have re-scent everything completely. I had an elderly gerbil once who I didn't fully realise at the time was declining in health, and she got quite stressed and upset when I wiped down all the shelves in her topper so she had to spend ages re-scenting them.