Ideally, the staple of their diet should be a gerbil food- while they may
prefer people foods, the majority of what you listed should be fed as
treats only. Some choose to use seeds mixes, however most vets I have
encountered who are familiar with gerbils strongly recommend a pellet or
lab block staple diet with seed mixes used for treats. Oxbow hay has
recently developed a nutritionally balanced rodent diet that I have heard
great things about.
While the majority of people food we feed them seem like "health food" to
us, they are not necessarily that for animals. For example, cheerios are
fairly high in sodium for continual feeding. Their need for fiber is also
quite high and often not met by human foods. If you slowly introduce a
gerbil food of some kind, they should begin to include it in their diet.
The key is not to refill the bowl with the goodies until they have eaten
some of the gerbil food. Eventually (a day or 2) they will be hungry enough
to eat it. I use a seed mix (KayTee Fiesta) and dry rolled oats as a base
with a few flakes of cereal and a couple raisins on top. I feed every other
day, and have found that virtually everything in the bowl will be gone at
that point, except some of the really tiny seeds. It is without a doubt all
the human food that gets eaten first.
Although they may seem quite fit right now, as gerbils age they tend to put
on weight more quickly- especially as they reach the 2 year mark. I would
begin trying to change their diet now, so by the time they reach that age
they won't be in danger of obesity because of all the human food.
Definitely don't worry about the vitamins for the water- gerbils don't
require any vitamin supplements naturally. Many of the vitamins degrade
very quickly once added to the water and exposed to light, so by the time
they drink there's not much left anyway.
Basically, the reason they don't eat gerbil food is because as of right
now, is because they don't have to :-) They surely were eating enough
before when they were in the pet store and after you bought them because
they were alive- gerbils need to eat small quantities regularly to survive.
Good luck to you and Nice & Kind!
Jill
----------
From: Kathleen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: is this diet OK?
Date: Saturday, April 21, 2001 1:58 PM
Hi. I am 53 years old and rather new to gerbils. I have 2 sisters I got
from a local pet store with a very good reputation. They are black with
white stripes running from their chin to about the level of their front
legs. One also has 3 white toes. Are they black spotted?
My real question is their diet. They were about 5 or 6 weeks old when I
got them , and had been eating a seed, grain, and pellet gerbil mixture
from the pet store. They didn't seem to be gaining weight like I thought
they should, and I began to notice they weren't eating much at all. I
started to experiment to find what they would eat. Well, it's nothing from
the pet store, I con tell you that. All the eat is "people" food.
I vary what they get each day, so over about 4 or 5 days they get almost
everything. The main part of their diet is dry breakfast cereal, usually
whole grain, 4 or 5 kinds a week, like Cheerios, Wheaties, Total, Special
K. The second category is crackers and bread. They get low sodium
Triscuits, graham crackers, and whole wheat or rye crisp breads (these I
break into gerbil-sized pieces). The bread is always whole grain dry
crusts. Sometimes for a treat I spread a little peanut butter on the
cracker pieces. They like unsalted air-popped pop corn too. Next, they
get cooked grains if they are part of the "people" diet--cooked oatmeal,
Zoom, and the like, plus bulgur, cous cous, rice, and sometimes macaroni
and cheese or whatever if we had it for dinner. They also get thawed but
not cooked frozen peas, corn kernels, and green beans, and fresh fruit like
cantaloupe, apples, grapes, peaches. pears, and avocado and fresh
vegetables like tomatoes, green beans, cabbage. They also like cooked (but
not raw) sweet potatoes and yogurt. They are about a year old now, active
and sassy, not too fat or too thin, with very shiny, lustrous fur. Their
favorite special treat is a bit of walnut, which I only give them from my
hand. They won't let me pick them up, but that's fine with me because I
really don't want them crawling up my arm or getting loose in my apartment
anyway.
My real question is if their diet is adequate. Should I be giving them
vitamins? I don't like the stuff you put in the water because they hardly
drink any water anyway, and I feel like I pour the vitamins down the drain
each time I change the water. Are there other foods I should be giving
them? Are there any that I am feeding them that may be harmful? And the
really big question, why won't they eat gerbil food? They won't even eat
gerbil treats!
Kathleen with Nice and Kind
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