Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi, If my son has a Male, and a Female how often do they have litters, and how old are they when they stop having litters. What do other people do with their babies when they get to the age to seperate them? There is a Petco near us and the one kid I talked to said that they let people donate them to the store.

I wouldn't do that if I were you. First, there are so many unwantted pets out there and you don't want to add to the problem. Second, I'm not sure exactly how many, but they will have A LOT of babies. If you want to keep them both, you should probably keep them in separate cages

You will have anywhere from 3-8 babies every 5-6weeks after the first litter. They are sexualy mature at 5-8 weeks averaging closer to the 8week old range. They will breed at least to 2 and usually to 3-4 years old. The female may need supplemental feeding or she could become overly thin having babies constantly. You should not breed gerbils just to create tons of fuzzy babies that will flood the petstores. You may need to have 2-3 petstores lined up to take them but petstores are not good places to take your litters. I would highly suggest you advertise in a paper or line up some homes outside of the petstore. I do not reccommend buying or taking an animal to a petstore unless it is a really good store and there are no breeders in your area. You will also need ornacycline or tetracycline used for respiratory illness in the pups. The female is best not handled much while she has young which is most of the time. You can't keep more than 3females in a cage and only 1 if there is a male or they will fight at least by the time they reach breeding age if not before. You need a 2nd cage or 2 to wean the babies in and it needs to hold up to 8 gerbils. Pet stores will not take them beyond 7weeks of age. Finally are your gerbils good for breeding? Are they friendly towards people and each other,do they have good color, are they healthy? Will their genes pollute or better the gerbil gene pool?

Ha, Ha, Ha. I don't even know the sex of the gerbils my son has so I was wondering how often these guys have babies if there happened to be a male and female. First "Katie" starts talking about unwanted pets. Then "AQH88" seems to want to be a Animal Activist and writes a book about how I shouldn't become a Professional Gerbil Breeder. But she includes a chapter about what I shouldn't do as a breeder. Thanks for the pointers Kid. LOL. You could have just answered the question and said about a litter every 8 weeks. Anyways to all the other Gerbil people in here breeding Gerbils is the last thing I want to do. I figure the income from raising gerbils wouldn't even pay for this internet connection. LOL I think I will raise Guinea Pigs, that's where the big money is......LOL

Actually you'd lose money. And I'm 'uptight' because every week some kid comes along wanting to breed gerbils generally the agouti which is the most common color and often hard to find homes for with no plan what to do with the babies. A few months later they show up again with cages packed full and dirty talking about all the litters they are losing and their gerbils are just suffering. Let's not even get into what I run across with young hamster breeders wanting to mix these 2 species. I love the one where they wanted to breed a male syrian (large hamster) to a female dwarf (half the size) cause it would be 'cool' to see the big male going after the little female and were curious what the babies would look like.....

Side note- I was constantly saving guinea pigs from the humane society and various homes that thought they were cute then didn't want them. You won't make much money there either. I bred tricolors and dilutes for 10 years. Guinea pigs need about 5-7 square feet of space for the first animal and 2sq feet every animal added to be completely healthy or they are affected mentally and emotionally. This is according to new studies out and the experiences of many guinea pig owners.