Hi Kathryn --
Before I had learned much about gerbils, I split cage introduced a male to 2
females. They were all young though (4 months). It worked fine, but when I
heard that females are the dominate gender in gerbils would eventually fight
over the male, I re-moved one girl.
I still have only six months gerbil breeding experience under my belt, but
these are my thoughts...
In general it is supposed to be very hard to introduce a single gerbil to a
pair/group without fighting breaking out. You could try this though with the
split cage method, perhaps after alternating boy pair/girl then putting each
boy with the girl alone first before all three are put together. Again though,
this could be risky.
Or you could use the split cage method and then put a boy with the girl in the
evening hours each night for several nights in a row watching them the whole
time and see if they mate. Then after a couple hours remove the male back
with his partner. Wear gloves in case they do fight and you have to step in.
The big thing is that given your boys are older have been together so long I
wouldn't split them up -- they may not take it well and may not re-pair.
Probably the easiest and saftest thing, though, would be to set up a tank with
a young (6-10 weeks) male and female. There are always plenty of pups
available through the GML and let them mate and raise the pups together.
-- Donna
Kathryn Behm wrote:
> I have two male black gerbils that were born in december of 1998. That
> makes them about 1 1/2 years old. They are siblings, and have been cage
> mates since they were about 6 weeks old. Is it too late to breed them for
> the first time? Is it possible for me to put a young female in with the
> both of them, or do I need to split them up? Or should I just let them be?
> I don't want them to fight.
> If it is okay for them to breed still, what would be a interesting color to
> breed them with? Any suggestions?
> Thanks in advance for any help!
> Katie Behm
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