Sunday, November 14, 2010

Our Gerbils

I wasn't going to blog about this, but what the heck. We have no secrets...

Last night, one of my son's pet gerbils had something in his mouth. I thought he had taken a chomp out of his snack shack. Well, upon closer inspection, I realized it was a baby gerbil! Yes, Murdoch the gerbil (Duncan named them after Thomas the Tank Engine characters) turned out to be a SHE. SHE delivered three pups last night. They were very cute, but sadly the three were dead by the morning. I did a little research and it looks like she may have had such a small litter that she wasn't able to produce enough milk to keep them alive. It was a little bit of a bummer having to pull dead gerbils out of the cage. I let Duncan see them, since it's all part of the life cycle. He wasn't upset.

Anyway, we were trying to figure out what is the better option, separating the male from the female in order to prevent more litters, or letting them stay together since they've bonded. Perhaps they're in love? When I took them out of their cage to wash it out today, Diesel was already mating with Rosie (aka Murdoch). We may have more pups on the way.

More drama...

Here's a cute video of baby gerbils. I'm such an animal lover. When I'm an old lady, I'll be like Brigitte Bardot with her animal sanctuary.

7 comments:

  1. oh so cute. i love little critters too. sorry to hear about the lil ones.

    (i recently wrote about an adorable little visitor to my yard, if you wanted to see some photos of cuteness. )

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  2. Well, Good Afternoon, what a surprise!

    You are correct, you are probably expecting more babies now. Gerbils will try to mate even as the last of the litter is being born. If you do not separate them you will have more than you know what to do with. Don't worry, gerbils don't fall in love, they're indescriminate.

    Our oldest bred gerbils for pet stores for awhile. It was quite the learning experience.

    Now I have my own two gerbil boys, Bingley and Darcy, who take care of much of my recycling. Gerbils rock.

    ps. You haven't seen cute until you've watched a baby gerbil eat a cheerio like a huge donut, awwww.

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  3. A similar thing happened when I was little. We had 2 female hamsters, Minnie and Kim, only Kim turned out to be a boy and Minnie had 3 ickle babies - they were soooooooooooo cute. And then there were 5 of the them...

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  4. Sigh, our kids do have to learn. The baby budgie (Labatt's Blue) is a boy. He definitely has a blue nose. And our Corona still loves him. I mean LOVES him. Not that there is anything wrong with that... At least we won't have eggs to deal with.

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  5. If you do decide to let them have another litter, you should probably separate the dad after the big event. I think I read somewhere that the male will eat the young. Maybe that's why he had one in his mouth.

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  6. Wow. Thanks for all the kind and informed comments. Mom Wald - who knew you were a gerbil expert? Now I know. I wasn't sure if Diesel was the one who caused the pups to die. Rosie kept frantically carrying them up and down the ladders in her mouth, even whipping around on the exercise wheel with a pup in her mouth. I'm not sure if her coping skills were just out of whack. I was a bit like that after I gave birth, minus the exercise.

    Thanks again
    Erin

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  7. Aaaaw! Looks like you'll be able to open your own gerbil business soon.

    I'm such an animal lover too! My husband told our girls that when I'm old, if he goes first, they have to check on me in case I become the crazy cat lady!

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I'm a slightly off-beat Toronto-area teacher who enjoys writing and photography. I come from a family of collectors and now I'm dragging my own family around to yard sales. It's just a bit of fun. Enjoy the scenes.