Hi Evon,
I never have once had any of my gerbils do what I would call "bite" which I
would take to mean chomp on me out of aggression or fear in an uncontrolled
way that would be significantly hard to hurt (or break the skin).
On the other hand I am very frequently nibbled on. The babies always put my
fingers (and everything else) in their mouths, I have a male who always
assumes I have a sunflower seed for him and (just in case) will taste my
index finger every time I pick him up, and when my gerbils are not happy
with me (e.g., messing with their pups) they have grabbed at my sleeve or
hand in a very controlled and not at all painful show of displeasure. In
all these cases I leave my hands still, and that is what I recommend to
people when I place pups.
I wonder if this girl freaked a little, and pulled her hand away when being
mouthed on? It would be so interesting to see how she interacts with the
gerbil.
I had a somewhat similar case, where a family was borrowing our female
Blossom for a few weeks. Blossom had never bit anyone, but at the end of
her stay, I was told that she was biting the teenaged girl every time she
picked her up (although the girl was not upset about it in that she picked
her up every day anyway). I brought her home as soon as I could arrange the
pickup after hearing that, afraid that she had become a biter. But it's
been two weeks and my daughter and I take her out all the time and have not
seen any sign of that behavior whatsoever?! I would be so curious to see
if/how she was handling her differently from the way we do.
One thing is with all our gerbils, we do not constrict/constrain their
movement when we handle them, but let them crawl on us. When my daughter
does hold Blossom still, she doesn't bite, but she does poop on her!
-- Donna A.
Evon wrote:
> Hi List,
> Thanks to everyone who replied to my "Biting Gerbil" question. I felt
> really bad about this situation not only because the little girl was
> bitten but the mother blamed me. When I sold her the gerbil I spent
> about 30 minutes going over proper handling and care for her new
> gerbil. I even gave her an information sheet that I wrote up for all my
> new owners. The mother was so angry that she told me that if it
> happened again she was going to bring the gerbil back to me. I wish she
> would bring him back, they are obviously not doing what I told them to
> do. Anyway, thanks to all.
> Evon
> "Pineywoods Gerbils"
