Will they ever get along?

[lizzy]

I've been split-caging two males for about three weeks.

I've taken the divider out twice and both times they've not launched at each other immediately, but gotten into a ball fight within a few minutes.

Not really sure what to do? i don't think its fair to keep them in a split cage indefinitely so I'm not sure whether or not I should just give up?

or maybe I should clean out the whole thing and start again with them? what do you think?

[sandy]

Have you been switching them from one side to the other? Also another thing you can do is run your finger over the scent gland and manually "scent-mark" the other gerbil with the other's scent, from nose to tail. Do them both before an attempted intro. I find that will help quite a bit. Also helps to have lots of cardboard distraction for them, sometimes they prefer to chew than to fight, especially if they have been "scent-marked" and smell familiar. It then becomes more of a case of determining dominance, which is less of a fighting issue than "strange gerbil, kill."

[lizzy]

I have been switching them over each side at least twice daily.

I haven't tried the scent mark thing nor the cardboard thing pre-introduction. I'll keep that in mind. thanks!