My two females exhibited some rather worrying behavior last night. They
are two unrelated females which I introduced and finally got together
about 6-7 months ago. They were 8 and 11 weeks in age. Angela, the
spotted agouti, is older than Cocoa, a black. Anyho, last night Angela
seemed to go totally bonkers last night and chased Cocoa around rather
violently. They occansionly met and tried to bite one another than
Cocoa would run off again and get chased. They were doing this rather
quickly so that they were literally bouncing/jumping of the walls and
objects in the aquirium. No one was hurt. It resemebled a gerbil
tornado. This worried me, so I seperated them for the night in a spilt
aquirium with new litter and the this morning put them back together.
They were fine this morning, just doing lots of sniffing and they have
since groomed oneanother and are currently sleeping together. The
previous day, they had acted the same way, with no sign of hostility.
So, I am wondering what the origin of this behavior is. A similar thing
happened once before, although not so violently a few months ago and
stances (raising butt up in the air) and other things seemed to suggest
that somebody was in estrus (the girl doing the posing?). The girl not
doing the posing would chase the posing girl. So anyone who has an idea
why my girls which usually get along fine do this sort of thing
occansionly are doing this let me know. Also, how often do "virgin"
females come into estrus? Any information about the reproductive
biology of the female would be helpful.
Another thing, one of my previous gerbils got ovarian cancer at 2.5
years which she was euthazized for. Is there a relation between number
of pregancies and cancer of the genitalia? She had never been pregnant
and lived her whole life with her sister/littermate.
Thanks,
janet, Albuquerque, NM
