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Post by jennybenny on Jan 12, 2024 14:26:46 GMT -8
Our gerbils were in a divided aquarium (more on that situation in another thread, they are re-introduced now) and I thought I would try the litter training. I put a bowl with chinchilla sand in each side. Lily went in it because the next day I saw droppings in her bowl. Oreo kicked every bit of sand out of her bowl and all over her living area. I tried again and the same thing happened.
After they were re-introduced, I put in one bowl to see what would happen. When I came back later, the sand was all gone again; she must do it vigorously because it was all over the aquarium, including the lid at the top! I stopped trying after that. If she’s just going to keep kicking it out then probably best not to use that?
Oreo likes to go in her wheel. So every day we have to take out the wheel and clean poop and pee from it but I don’t mind because then I know it’s probably not in the bedding getting yucky and things stay fresh longer. I feel kind of bad for Lily and hope she doesn’t mind because she had taken to it right away but now that they are living together again… Thoughts?
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Post by TJ's Rodent Ranch on Jan 12, 2024 19:49:42 GMT -8
Interesting, I've never thought of litter training a gerbil.
I'm not sure if it's possible, but I assume there's definitely more to go on than that. They're probably trying to use the intended litter box as a sand bath. Some gerbils will also instinctively like to use the sand bath over their bedding/sleeping area. However, as far as I understand it, this is a matter of their own preference, and can't really be changed or trained.
I don't know a whole lot about litter training a gerbil, so someone on here probably has more information on it.
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Post by LilyandDaisy on Jan 13, 2024 10:24:13 GMT -8
I think you probably need a deeper bowl so they can't kick as much sand out. My gerbils have this large, deep dish (found in a charity shop, I think it's a souffle dish?) A lot of people will also use small glass fish bowls like the one in the corner of this enclosure. They also have the square dish in the middle because the gerbils who lived in this enclosure never really kicked the sand out. I do find that the larger the dish, the less inclined they are to kick all the sand out, though it depends on the individual gerbils. Some people also use jars like this one.
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Post by jennybenny on Jan 13, 2024 11:29:25 GMT -8
I never knew litter training gerbils was a thing either tell my mad dive down the rabbit hole of gerbil research lol.
OK that makes a lot of sense! I could see how the dish I was using led itself to kicking all the sand out. We have given a sand bath once so far and right now we were thinking about doing that every weekend and for that I use a much bigger container, but I just read that a pie tin works well for a sand bath as well. For that, we don’t leave it in the aquarium. We keep it in their 10 or 15 minutes or until they are done showing any interest in it and then take it out. We don’t have a play area separate from the aquarium yet.
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Post by Markpd on Jan 21, 2024 10:09:16 GMT -8
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Post by LilyandDaisy on Jan 21, 2024 13:59:57 GMT -8
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