<<<What is there that could be "neat" about any animal born with deformitie
If we ever had a Gerbil born in this fashion we would regard it as a tragedy
and do everything we could to give this Gerbil a good quality life...>>>>>
I'm sure Steven didn't mean to say he was going to go hack some poor gerbils
tail off, or try to breed gerbils without tails, and was mearly saying that
it was an interesting mutation, and there are other animals who's loss of
tail has made them very special. Cats, Rats, ect.
I have a very special gerbil, Kessy, who I got when she was 3 weeks old. I
rescued her from at pet store, fed her with a dropper and opened her seeds
for her until she could feed herself. I then introduced her to my agouti
male Piper, and they bred two litters of happy, healthy gerbils. In the
time span from which her second litter was born, and the conception of her
third, she lost almost all of her tail due to an unfortunate wheel accident.
She had chewed the tape off the wheel and went running at high speeds before
I got a chance to repair the wheel. I'd say she has about one and a half
centimeters of tail. Her third litter produced 7 healthy gerbils, 1 with a
very short tail. I have kept Margo and she and Kessy live together. I don't
know why Margo was born without a tail, Kessy didn't *carry* anything to
make this happen, and yet here is my little tailless girl. Neither Kessy nor
Margo have any serious disability, both can walk and climb fine. In fact,
both LOVE to jump around and climb on their "wall" that I put in their tank
just for them to climb. I did stop breeding Kessy after this litter, but
not due to her tail, but due to the loss of Piper to Tyzzers.
I did have one other mishap with a little siamese girl. I was at a pet store
showing my gerbils and teaching people how to care for them (for those of
you who are against petstores, I'd like to add that I do not sell gerbils to
pet stores, thank you very much :) when a three year old girl decided to
grab at Karis and pick her up by her tail. Karis was NOT happy with this,
and took off. . .leaving her tail in the girl's hand. Okay, a little
tramatizing, and no, the girl's mother did not purchase a gerbil that day. I
took Karis home and treated her with Neosporin and she was fine, again, no
disability due to the loss of almost all of her tail.
Anyways, the point of my ramblings is that while gerbils can be fine without
tails, I did not make it a point to breed them this way, accidents do
happen. I'm also saying that I also think gerbils without tails are very
special and just as able to jump, run, climb, and sit up as gerbils with
tails, though this may not be the case with all gerbils. Okay, if this was
a tad rambly I'm going to have to apoligize, it's 12:11 in the morning and I
can't sleep. :) ~Tasha~
Tasha Rieck, Proud Member of the American Gerbil Socity
Gerbil Kisses -- The Essence of Adorable
http://www.geocities.com/Petsburgh/Haven/9233/index.html or E-mail me --
[EMAIL PROTECTED] -- for details.
Alyssa: Ash, honey, look, we've got seven more beautiful babies!
Ashwin: Alyssa, sweetie, didn't we just HAVE 7 four weeks ago?
Tasha: Yup, Ashie, four weeks to the day. :)
Alyssa: Don't forget about the 6 eight weeks ago, and the 3 twelve weeks
ago.
Ashwin: Okay, sweetie, enough with the babies.
*Compliments of Alyssa Jayne and Ashwin August Milano, parents of 53 pups to
date. . and they're barely a year old*
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