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Ok, the Big Question... How many gerbils should you have?
Other than space considerations, or parents, or landlord/lease,
or a significant (often said Suffering) Other... a good rule of
thumb:
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| *Every Tank or Cage, will have one or two gerbils in it...
two usually. (optimal number for happy social gerbils and least
amount of potential squabbles between your gerbils); needs at least
30 minutes a day. This is for feeding, minor maintenance (rinsing
and filling the waterbottle, etc) and playing with your gerbils.
Figuring you have a life (having to go off to work, school, and
other things associated with regular living) it's assumed you have
about four hours a day at the end of your day to eat, prep for tomorrow,
goof off, etc...and two hours a day is about the most one can expect
to spare. So that gives a total of four tanks or cages, with one
or two animals each. Or, eight gerbils, tops. |
| *On the weekend or your day(s) off you will
have to give another 30 minutes to an hour to clean each tank or
cage, and all those related chores. So expect another 2-4 hours
for gerbil care and maintenance. Can you spare that sort of time
in your life? If so, then... |
| *Now of course, if you have pups, you need to add at least
30 minutes a day per litter and another hour for the weekend; because
pups are so cute and need that time to be played with. I usually
say an hour more per litter per day. So if you want to breed, one
or two tanks with breeders and another few tanks with pup litters
waiting for homes is about the most you can handle. Plus you have
to consider that you will have 6-8 pups to place every 5-6 weeks,
from the time your pair is around 8 weeks old to over two years
old. Figure 18 litters with 6 pups, that is 108 gerbils. Per pair
that you want to breed. Now of course that will vary too, but it
gives you an idea of what you're looking at. |
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*Keeping two same sex pairs seems to work well for most
gerbil keepers. This allows one to have some fancy colors, etc;
and keeps the number to care for within reason. Of course, we
usually soon cross the line into 'gerbil addiction' and have tanks
all over before we notice. But. From having skirted commercial
level breeding for a time, it can add up to a LOT of work really
fast. For the average hobbyist who loves gerbils, this is a good
basic guideline. IF you're going to breed, one or two breeding
pairs, or one breeding pair and break the pair up after 2-4 litters;
keeping a few offspring as company for the parents...or having
the breeding male neutered so the pair can stay together and keeping
a pair or two of the offspring in same sex pairs can be the best
options. We've all cruised the petstore and been taken in by all
that cute on paws too....but.
If you've wondered if you have too many, use the guidelines above
on time and space to see if you're overextending yourself and
perhaps need to recruit someone else into the ranks and adopt
some of your little ones out (with visitation privileges of course).
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