Sorry, I sent this to the wrong address...
Helen the Gerbil (DEH) died Wednesday night. She was 2 1/2 years old. She was the last surviving member of a litter of six born on 12/15/98. They were some of the best gerbils we ever had. Helen was the runt at first. When the other five were ready to be weaned, she was still naked. I had given up hope she would survive, but I decided to let her stay and have her mother all to herself for a while. Once the others were gone, she quickly caught up to them and surpassed them in size. She was obsessed with food and quickly put on too much weight. This became a lifelong struggle. We stopped feeding her sunflower seeds and started feeding her just the pellets to help her reduce. Recently we began noticing that her breathing was labored. I took her to the vet and he thought her heart and lungs sounded fine. He suggested I give her some cod liver oil or some dandelion greens to help with elimination. Helen ate well until the end, but she was a bit listless. Still, she was not too listless to give her cagemate a good power groom! My husband found her dead when he came home from work tonight. She had been spitting up blood. when I checked her body tonight, it looked as if the skin on her lower jaw was gone or at least really curled back. In one place, I swear I could see the lower jawbone. My husband also said that normally after a gerbil dies, the bladder muscles relax and the urine dribbles out, but this did not happen with Helen. Do you have any ideas as to what might have killed her? We used aspen bedding. I believe she might have had congestive heart failure. Thank you so much! Renee Arena and the 11 surviving gerbils of the Cheesel Clan
