Re: Split cage

[Donna Anastasi]

I can share my somewhat related "split" cage experience.  I had two young female (less than 4 months) paired and wanted to introduce one to a male and remove the other female (to be paired up later).  To transition into the repairing, I used a habitrail cage within a 20 gallon tank with the two girls kept together and the male kept in the opposite enclosure, switching them between enclosures every 24 hours.  After a couple of days, I took out the females nest from the 20 gallon tank to move them into the habitrail and three heads peeked out.  The male had popped the plastic top off the habitrail and joined the girls.  I was happy that the intended mating pair was together, but worried that the smaller female might get beat on, so (being late for work and needing a quick solution) moved her into the habitrail leaving the male and female together in the larger/outer tank.

My young daughter called me at work about an hour later.  The larger female had chewed a gerbil sized hole right through the habitrail plastic and sprung her partner.  Again the three were in the nest together getting along wonderfully.  However, given all I had read about female dominance in gerbils, I removed the smaller female that night into her own 10 gallon tank.

Of course this is only one example, but it seems to me that from this experience that a split pair kept in close proximity might be very motivated to reunite.

Please let me know how it works out.  I am also interested in ideas for limited/controlled breeding while satisfying the gerbil's need for a companion.

Rogelio Garza wrote:

Hi, i was just wondering about split cage method...

could it be used permanently to house four gerbils? for example, if i have a
two males and two females, and wanted to breed them for colors, could i keep
two males on one side, two females on the other ,adn then just pair them up
as i want certain ones to breed?