i need sum help plz

[birko]

I perchased a wheel from pets at home today and i am just wondering if it is ok and will my gerbils enjoy it and there is a picture below of my wheel. And do u think it is suatble.

[andrea]

I would say be very careful with this one, its a classic losing tail type wheel..

firstly i would wind some cardboard around the wheel itself so it no longer has holes in the outer ring.

Funnily enough we found none of our gerbs are a bit interested in wheels only the pups are interested until they are about 8 weeks then they loss interest .. ;D

Andrea

[sweetie]

I agree with Andrea. Those holes are a bit too wide. They suggest plastic wheels for gerbils and not wire with holes. Usually what happens is a gerbils tail or leg will fall through and the wheel keeps going and the other part of the gerbil gets caught. Again a great idea with the cardboard since you already purchased it. You can always get creative maybe even light screen will work.

[Ritzie/Admin]

Plastic wheel won't survive long in a Mongolian gerbil's cage! I can tell from my own experience! They start to chew it into little pieces!

New metal wheels are much safer than the older ones!

Here some info from my site on an exercise wheel:

The opinions about the necessity of an exercise wheel in a gerbil cage are very divide. It’s of course not possible to denied the benefit of extra exercise for your gerbils, if they will use it for that purpose. My own gerbils use their exercise wheel only to gnaw at and to climb on, not to run in. Nowadays I don’t use exercise wheels in all my cages. But from others I hear that their gerbil will use them a lot and really love it. To my opinion Mongolian gerbil are more diggers than runners. If they have enough chance to dig, burrow, and to gnaw, they will generally not use their wheel that much.

There are also some disadvantages at an exercise wheel. It is good for exercise and against boredom, but offers only a compulsive, monotonous motion. This monotonousness can conceivably result in psychic problems, stereotypic behaviour. A wheel with bars can also be a fully automatic gerbil-tail-amputate-machine! Especially the old wheels are that. I have to say that the wheels today generally are much more save. Previously the wheel had no space between bar and the standard, which made it work like a guillotine. It chopped off tails. Nowadays most wheels have enough space between the bar and the standard. You can check this by yourself. When a pencil fits between the bar, and standard, the wheel is save, because the tail can't get stuck.

Do you want to give a wheel to your gerbils? If so, be sure they are big enough (Ø > 17 cm), so that your gerbils don’t have to walk with a swayback. Be sure that you buy a safe wheel, preferably with a closed tread and a closed back, so that the tail cannot get stuck. And you have to check the bar and the standard.