Megan's Gerbils

Blackie's New Buddy, Ninja- Fri 5/12/2006
Last night we went out to the pet store and bought a new gerbil. His name is Ninja. Megan's gerbil book warned us that unfamiliar gerbils might fight with each other, but that buying a young gerbil will help with the integration process.

To introduce them to each other, we bought a small wire cage so that they could be near one another but stay separated. According to the book, we should put them in a cage with a wire mesh divider, and swap sides two times a day for a few days. It was much simpler than that. While I was cleaning out the cage, we tossed them in a bucket together. They took to each other without a problem so when the cage was ready, we just put them in together. This morning when we woke up, everything was peachy so that's that.

The only worry that I have now is whether or not Ninja is definitely a male gerbil. (He's) so young that I can't tell by looking. The pet store expert says that he is, but I've heard of them being wrong before. We took one gerbil to the lady and she said, "That's a girl" whereupon we answered, "No thanks." So the next one we took to her she said, "That's a boy". And we bought it. Hmmmmmmm.

I guess we'll find out in the next 8 weeks.

Jingles Died - Wed 5/10/2006
It is a sad day. Jingles died. Megan is heart broken, but she knows that Jingles is in heaven. This morning, Jingles didn't come out of the nest when Megan checked on them before school. When she took him out, his eyes were closed and he would only lie limply in one place. He moved his legs to adjust his position but didn't seem to have the strength to do anything else.

We removed him from the cage and made a bed of cotton balls with a lamp over him to keep him warm. Megan went to school, and it fell to Catherine to care for poor Jingles. She checked on him every 20 minutes, offering him water and food. He drank, but wouldn't eat, and his condition continued to worsen until he died this afternoon.

I came home from work at 3:15 pm to meet Megan coming home from school, and we had a funeral for Jingles. Megan decorated a little box that we used to bury him, and we said a few words at the grave site.

All and all, I'd say it has been a good experience for Megan. She has a little hole in her heart right now, but it will heal quickly.

Good bye Jingles. You were a good pet.

In the hot summer months we've turned on our swamp cooler. The moisture has made the gerbil cage start to stink. We are experimenting now with mixing kitty litter in with the sand and it seems to be working. The gerbil guard works like a charm. No more messes outside the cage! We are practically gerbil experts now a days. Once this kitty litter thing proves itself, I'll make a list of all our recommendations for the best way to keep gerbils.

I have been so impressed with the sand. It is the greatest thing. We went to PetSmart yesterday and looked at the gerbils. They looked terrible compared to Blackie and Jingles. Their fur looked matted and sticky. Our gerbils have a soft fluffy look. Each hair is separated from the rest and looks clean. It is definitely because of the sand. I see them bathing in it all the time. The sand never gets damp or soggy like the paper or wood shaving litter that they use in the store. Any water or urine is soaked into the sand instantly and dries out within minutes. Every two weeks, I sift the sand and put it into a "used sand" bucket and refill their tray from my "unused sand" bucket. When I run out of unused sand, I'll take a trip out to the sand dunes to dump the used and and get a fresh supply. That brings me to the sand that we use. It isn't playground sand. It is from the sand dunes out in the West Desert. It is just like what you'd find at Pismo Beach in California. It works great, we have the cleanest and healthiest looking gerbils that I've ever seen.

Jingles-2 - Sat 6/11/2005
We went on a vacation and left Blackie and Jingles with Uncle Rick and Aunt Michelle. Their son Ben enjoyed them so much that he got himself a gerbil the day after we returned and named her Jingles just like ours. He taught a good lesson with a sad story. After having Jingles2 for a few weeks, Ben move her outside into their aviary with the chickens. It was very cool. Jingles2 made trails all through the aviary and made 5 or 6 exits out of it. She kept her nest in the cage, but was free to rome the great outdoors to her heart's content. Unfortunately it couldn't last forever. Jingles2 was eaten by an unknown predator after about 5 weeks of blissful freedom. Poor girl.

Megan and I decided on gerbils because they are supposed to be more lively during the day than a hamster. We did some research a few months ago. The nice lady at the pet store said that rats are the best rodent for a pet, they don't bite and are smarter (easier to train) than mice, gerbils, and hamsters. But Megan won't even entertain the idea of a rat. Something deeply feminine in my adventurous, tom-boy daughter must be rising to the surface. What ever it is, it forbids rats. The pet store lady then revealed that hamsters and gerbils are the next best choice. She said that they will bite but can be trained not to. She also claimed that hamsters are strictly nocturnal, where gerbils are active during the day and at night. In my daughter's ears, the voice said, "Hamsters will sleep all day and you can't play with them". Since then she's wanted gerbils.

Details, details, details. What type of cage? What type of litter? What kind of mess? How bad is the smell? Where to put the cage? These are some of the questions that I've been trying to answer. Here is what we'll do and why.

• Two gerbils - The book says that they are social animals and they shouldn't live alone.
• Both males - Don't want baby gerbils every six weeks. Supposedly boys get along better than girls.
• Wire cage - I don't want an aquarium because when I was a kid, I remember it smelling terrible. I am hoping that with open sides and free air flow through the living space, the foul smells won't amass.
• Sand - I usually see hamsters and gerbils kept in a bed of wood chips, but the book that we read recommended sand. The book said that gerbils are from the desert and that they do best with sand so I asked a friend of mine to bring some sand back from the sand dunes. I am worried about them throwing the sand out of the cage. We'll see.
• Cage in the hall - I don't want the gerbils too far out of sight. I don't want to put them back in the girls room, but I don't want them too close to our room. We are planning to put them at the end of the hallway. That way they will be seen every day by all of us.