Reptile & Amphibian Forums

It appears that the parents of a litter of five buried four babies and they died... does this happen a lot?

no it's not common as gerbils are very good parents. Is this their first litter? How old were the babies? What bedding do you have? If the babies aren't kept warm and covered up then they can get respiratory infection which is the most common killer of gerbil pups. They can also get it if you use any woodchips for bedding or have very dusty bedding. Sometimes first litters are weak and you might lose some especially if the parents bred too young. Bed them on aspen if you must use wood shavings, carefresh or a paperbased bedding are best. Give them papertowels to shred into nesting material to keep the babies warm. Keep them well fed and make sure the female doesn't look too skinny. A quick fat/protein boost is chopped nut pieces such as walnut fed as a treat. A sand bowl will keep their coats very soft and they often use it as a litterbox which makes cleaning easier. You can set up a fish bowl half full of fine grain hardware sand (quartz or silicate sand not the multicolored all purpose sand). My female likes to nest in the sand.