gerbil puberty

[angel]

Saw someone say somewhere that gerbils will reach puberty sooner if they are not housed with their parents. Is this true?

[LilyandDaisy]

Yes, I believe there is some truth in that. Female puberty is supposedly delayed when girls live with their mothers, and with males I'm not sure whether puberty is actually delayed, but a male may be less likely to attempt to breed with his mother while his father is around, than if his father were not around.

However, I wouldn't recommend relying on this in order to control reproduction as it's unpredictable.

My gerbils' breeder has a pair who had a litter of five boys. One pup was removed to join an older gerbil, but the rest of the family lived together for months, before finally being removed when they were about 5 months old. The sons never mated with their mother in that time, and one they were removed did the parents mate again and have another pup. I gather this is quite exceptional though. It's more usual for gerbils in captivity to keep breeding back-to-back until separated.

That particular gerbil family does seem to have a history of being a bit less interested in breeding than average anyway. The male is the brother of my gerbils Astra and Twiglet, and Astra rarely shows signs of being in heat (only 2 or 3 times in her lifetime) which makes me think she is less motivated to reproduce than most gerbils (I also feel she took a long than average time to mature physically). Twiglet is more like a normal female in that regard. Their father was paired with a younger gerbil in his old age, and they lived together for months without ever being seen mating, until about a month before he died, a litter unexpectedly appeared. It seems that suddenly realising his mortality, he had an urge to continue his lineage while he still could! He died when the pups (including Astra and Twiglet) were about 4 weeks old, and there was a second litter born after he died.