Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I am trying to train my baby gerbil but I am not having much luck. Any advice?? From the owner of Studmuffin

Well, it took me a month, but I finally have one of my gerbils seemingly hand trained. I mainly used the feeding trick. When you're filling their food bowl, let them take some from your hand first. For some reason, my gerbils aren't to crazy about sunflower seeds, so I found something else healthy that they liked: oatmeal. Uncooked, non-flavored plain oatmeal of course. All three of mine go crazy over the stuff. Kuro, my black male, would usually never put more then three paws on my hand as he ate. But suddenly, just today, when he wasn't busy trying to eat their house, he would just on my hand and halfway up my arm when I put it in the tank. As a reward, I would slowly lift it so he could run about the top of the tank. When he would get tired of that after a few minutes, I'd put my hand in again so he could jump back on it and then lower it back into the cage again. Now, if I could just get him to do it while the other two were watching, so they would learn too....
Basically: Time, patience, and finding a tasty treat they like.