Regarding the poor gerbils without their mother. My heart goes out to you, Giovanna. What a tragic accident! I've read that it's very hard to nurse babies, but I know there are other gerbil owners on this board who have done so & pulled the babies through. From my limited experience, I would recommend calling a vet and seeing if she has a tiny syringe - unlike the large syringe for birds that you find in the pet store. This syringe is small, thin, and squeezes out the drops much more slowly. My understanding is that you will have to nurse them around the clock. Unless.....my fellow gerbil enthusiasts will have to help me here: Did I once read that sometimes another grown female gerbil will "adopt" babies?
Chris: Regarding plastic habitrails. You will eventually need to replace the habitrail since gerbils love to gnaw on plastic. That is the bonus of housing the gerbils in an aquarium. An aquarium lasts forever. And you can still have the best of both worlds. S.A.M. makes a tube lid for 10-gallon aquariums (not 20 gallon ones, unfortunately), or you can take a wire mesh lid off of the top of your aquarium and just lower tubes into the aquarium for play time & take them out again when you're done. My recommendation for bedding is to *not* use corn cob bedding since it can get moldy underneath and make the gerbils sick. CareFresh and Eco-litter are great beddings. You can find CareFresh at Petco Pet Store. I've heard that Aspen bedding is good, too - but not cedar. You've probably already read that your gerbils can jump pretty high. Also, females live less harmoniously together than males - usually. From what I've heard on the board, two females should do alright, but three females together would be "iffy." And never keep them apart for (board, help me - longer than 24 hours?), because they will "forget" one another and then fight when they're reunited. I lost several of our babies to accidents and respiratory virus. Now, my kids (ages 10 & 7) and I have two gerbil parents, two male babies (various ages), and one female baby. We gave two of the older female babies away to friends. Also, we have two female hamsters. The gerbils are separated in two aquariums by gender. The hamsters each have their own aquariums since hamsters are less social than gerbils and will attack each other if not left to live alone. Got to go. My son is whining about having to give the gerbils fresh water. Since his favorite gerbil died, he says he "hates" the gerbils and doesn't want to feed or water them. Got to go. The whining is really grating on my nerves right now. -Jean
