Yay its up !

--reserve--

1. How to DIY a water bottle hanger

One of the popular problems faced by gerbil owners is the issue of how to provide a source of water for gerbils. Although a dish can be used, but most of the time the gerbil will bury the dish in shavings, making the bedding wet. It is important for a gerbil to have water especially if it is pregnant or nursing. Gerbils have been known to reabsorb fetuses or even eat a pup to get the water it needs if water is not provided.

There are many types of bottles available on the market. If you are able to find a bottle with those suckers or those that stick to the tank wall then it is good, however sometimes the gerbils will chew the suckers or the water bottle itself.
If you have the type of bottle that points downwards, you can hang it from the tank cover, however if you have the normal type of bottle, the kind without a small hole at the top for you to hang wire through..you might have to make a bottle holder yourself.

Example:

Water bottle with no hole at the top provided.


Water bottle with hole provided at the top



2. How to make a split cage

Why need a split cage? Note that gerbils have very short memories and can forget their friends in 3 days or even less. If you have to seperate your gerbils because of breeding but wish to reintroduce them at a later date, you should use a split cage so that they can still see and smell each other. New gerbils can also be introduced in this way for a few days, so that there is less chance of fighting when you finally put them together. Remember that gerbils can fight to the death, dont think that they look so loving and tame to their friends, once they see an unknown gerbil they can fight viciously and cause very serious wounds. I'm speaking from experience here.



This is the simplest split cage you can make for a plastic tank. The sides are rubber hose split into half, the purpose is so that you can wedge the whole thing into the tank, and it wont move or slip. Remember that plastic tanks are wider at the top than at the bottom, so you have to take that into account when cutting and bending the wire mesh. Try to use metal wire mesh with small holes, with big holes the gerbils will keep on chewing at it, and hurt their noses. Make sure it is tall enough, gerbils can climb up the split and crawl through any small spaces at the top.


3. Alternative to tanks

Gerbils given birth and you want to seperate the dad from the mum? Or perhaps your gerbil has fallen sick and you want to seperate it from the other healthy ones temporarily. If you can't get a tank at short notice, you can use a storage box



This is just to give a general idea. Note that the top should be securely fastened, else the gerbil will escape. Usually I put the storage box lid on top covering half the wire, and something heavy on top, but more pegs should do the trick as well.

Keith just passed away he was still slightly warm when I saw he was no longer breathing. Sigh... he's still young. No sickness, no wounds nothing. Somehow I feel he died of old age because he has been sleeping more and looking a bit tired lately. It was still a great shock tho, since hes not even 2 years old.

Anyway at the very least he had a good life, as alpha male of his colony, and fathered 10 gerbils. he died very peacefully like sleeping. I'm just sorry that I didnt spend as much time with him as when I first got him, but he was very happy ruling his male colony of 5 gerbils.

RIP Keith...

Heres the last pics I took of him while he was still warm in my hands. I cant belive he's gone, he looks like taking one of his naps. Sigh... he was my 1st gerbil along with Pecan(died a few months ago). I'll bury him together with her tomorrow.







This post has been edited by jaswwp: Feb 12 2007, 12:45 AM

Thanks for the kind thoughts guys,I just burried Keith with Pecan. Put him in a small metal box, like a coffin. My parents said its so much trouble for a gerbil, coz it was raining and all that today....but its ok la, it wont feel right to just dump him away in the bin. I'd rather give him a proper burial.

Hm well to tame a gerbil, try to get it to eat from your fingers, and move on to getting it to sit on your hand while eating, and slowly u can stroke it while its busy eating.

Haha, foos version of tame gerbil = lazy gerbil

My version of tame gerbil is a gerbil that jump on your hand when it sees its owner come. (Go Anya go!)

Just kidding foo,hahaha....

Dien I think its a pink eyed white..although the pics not very clear, haha.. I may be wrong though.. u can check urself if the eye got blue color at the edges then it is ruby eye, if not then it is pink eye

This post has been edited by jaswwp: Feb 13 2007, 11:45 AM

they might chew off all ur hair no need to shave it, haha

All the best with the pup Hun, hope he makes it.

The white should be Pink eyed White and the other color should be Argente Cream...

This post has been edited by jaswwp: Feb 23 2007, 12:06 PM

i seperate at 6 weeks usually. Coz I will intro the male pups to my male clan, easier for them to accept younger pups. If you are just seperating all the male siblings away from the mum you can wait longer la, but not longer than 10 weeks... sometimes they might mate with the mum if the dad is not around when they reach that age.

pets wonderland rm48... but for now i think they only have sp agouti, not very nice sp also... just slightly spotted.

Mine destroyed another bottle last week too. Some of my bottles I put a wir emesh cover for it so they cant chew at the bottle, but some of mine tend to hang on the bottle and shake it, then all the water comes out, haha...so notty

not easy to do the wire mesh cover for the bottle though...took quite some time n some poked fingers from the mesh edges..haha..the problem is making the cover "sharp edges" free..coz the ends of the wire mesh will poke out..then hav to bend it one by one

This post has been edited by jaswwp: Feb 26 2007, 11:18 AM

Hehe.. my bottle wire mesh cover top slightly rusty adi..coz my gerbil always hang on top n chew chew chew everyday..hope the gerbils dont die from poisoning.... terrible la them

can... but u hav to wait till i get home... hehe, i din take pics of it b4

haha... i always get people to help me carry... if i go pet stuff shopping myself I seldom buy more than 4 kg.... too heavy la

In other words, you have to know the parentage of your sp black, if he had a pp gene parent, he will also carry Pp.. which can give you red eyed pups as well as black eyed if paired with a red eyed gerbil or a black eye with Pp. So you will have at least 2 colors of pups la. However even if one of the sp blacks parent is AA or Aa, you sp black will not have A- gene.. blacks are always aa(self color).. so if you want A- pups, you have to pair it with a non self gerbil ( AA or Aa).

If you dont know the parantage it helps if you know what color are the siblings of your gerbil too.

ultimately its up to what colors you wish to get, are u aiming for a specific color or a vareity of colors in the same litter.

This post has been edited by jaswwp: Feb 27 2007, 04:30 PM

1st of all, what color pups would you like to see in babies? if you want red eyed babies, you must make sure your sp black has at least 1 red eyed parent. if you want DEH or nutmeg babies, you must get an sp black with at least 1 deh or nutmeg parent.

If your sp black has black/agouti parents, I'm afraid theres not much colors other than black/agouti that will come out in your pups no matter what you pair to it. sp blacks generally dont give good colors unless they have the resessive genes required for it.

uh, self doesnt mean no sp... all black gerbils are self, regardless sp or no sp. self means top n bottom coat color are same. if u want to breed sp gerbils... breeding sp x sp will give you 3/4 sp pups... sp x non sp will give you around 50% sp pups.

if u want lilac, deh... you have to start with lilac and deh... dont expect tat a sp black can give you lilac or deh unless it has lilac/deh parents.. then also u have to mate it to lilac or deh in order to get what you want.

This post has been edited by jaswwp: Feb 27 2007, 05:05 PM

Post pic of your red fox ler..haha....so lnog adii