Hi all!
I just joined this mailing list, and what better way to introduce myself
than with a bunch of questions for you all? ;o) I hope you don't
mind...there ARE quite a few of them, but with so many of you subscribed to
the list, I felt certain that there'd be SOMEONE who could answer my
questions! ;)
Well first off, while I'm introducing myself, my name's Amber, and I have
four gerbils: two males (Sir William and Sir Henry) and two females
(Cecilia - nicknamed CC - and Chloe). Unfortunately, I don't know how old
they are, because I got the males from someone else (who didn't pay much
attention to the poor dears), and the females are from a pet shop (though
the shop took good care of them). Sir William is an agouti, and Sir Henry
is a black gerb...I have no idea what the two females are! :o�
But now to my questions (and sorry if this turns out to be a little
long...I'm TRYING to keep it short!)...I've been thinking about breeding one
pair of my gerbils (not sure which I'll pick from each cage yet), but before
I start anything, I want to know as much as I POSSIBLY can. And I think the
most reliable people to ask are people who already have experience...not
some book!! ;o) So if any of you can answer these questions, could you
email me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]? This way, unless others want to know the
answers as well, it won't clutter mailboxes! And NOW I'm gonna ask the
questions!
The first is probably a silly question, but since my males are older than
the females, would it still be okay to breed them? I've heard of
parent-child matings, but I don't know...pairing older guys with younger
girls just sounds like exploitation! ;)
Also, since I only want one breeding pair, that'll leave the other male and
female without a cagemate! Does anyone have a suggestion about that?
Should I forget about breeding ANY of the 4 and just buy a breeding pair?
Or should I get them each a new cagemate? That might be a little difficult,
since I'd have to do the split-cage introductions, I'm sure. But I'd NEVER
leave the poor critters alone!
Is it recommended to leave the male and female together for life? I know
they mate for life, so it would probably be upsetting for them to be
separated, but would there be any serious effects from taking the male away
from the female? In other words, can it be done without either of them
getting depressed or anything?
Okay, this next question is from something the pet shop girl said when I was
getting my two girls. She was saying that gerbil dispositions can change
after mating...like, a once mild-tempered female might be more
short-tempered after her first litter. I can't explain it well, but is that
true? This girl had more experience with hamsters, so maybe that's what she
was thinking of. From all the websites I've looked at, I've gathered that
they all still stay their sweet selves, but who knows! ;)
Only 2 more questions to go! This one isn't really VITAL, but more of an
opinion. Were I to finally decide to breed, would there be any pairings
that would have better litters? I don't know if it's harder to decide
without the genealogy, but as I said, my two males are black and agouti. I
have NO idea what Cecilia is (she used to have these patches of orange on
her fur--which is kind of like a mix of black and brown--but the orange is
slowly disappearing), and Chloe looks like an argente golden from what I'd
seen of pictures of ag's...but she has dark eyes. I'd say she was agouti
golden, because she has black ticking, but her fur is a lovely pale
peachy-gold! I need pictures, hehe...but would there be any pairing that
would have more colorful offspring?
And finally, the last question. I live in Pennsylvania, and I don't know if
there are any of you who are also from this state, but generally-speaking
are there laws concerning selling gerbils? I heard that in Colorado you
can't sell the pups before a certain age (6 weeks) but is there anything
else? You don't need licenses or anything? Hehehe..."Hi, I have a gerbil
license!" ;o)
But that's it. To those of you who read through this whole long thing,
thank you SO much! And for those of you who can help me, thank you even
more!!! Hopefully you all can appreciate the need to be well-informed! ;oD
Oh yeah! Is there anyone who could give an estimate on how much it would
cost to breed a pair of gerbils (assuming they were left together for life
and had the usual number of litters)? And how much would I need in regard
to supplies? Well anyway, I'll leave those questions to another time!
First I have to convince Mom to let me do it! You'd think at 19 I'd be able
to do what I wanted, but it's still her house, and she might love my little
guys (and girls) to death, but she for some reason doesn't want any babies!
;o)
~*~Amber~*~
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