Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Dear all:

My gerbils have had babies. After six weeks of owning them and thinking recently that they would never have babies, they surprised us by dropping four pinkies. The mom never gave any indications that she was pregnant. We had all but thought she was infertile.

Imagine the pleasant surprise we got three days ago!
Click here to see the entire Gerbil baby photos.

Very cool. Do you only have one female in there? Sometimes one female can't supply all of the babies with milk and one doesn't make it.

Dear Nz:

I do currently only have one mom. In the future, I plan to grow some of these babies into moms. I didn't realize that it would be a concern that if I only have one mom that milk can be in short supply. Hopefully since there is only four babies, it would be okay. In the case of mice, I do see that the moms all share in the milking duties. I hope that in the future, these gerbils will also share milking duties.

I do have a concern about whether the new babies will need their individual male mates. From what I am reading, gerbils mate for life, so the usual 1.3 1.4 arrangement may or may not work. I hope I don't have to do 2.2 or 3.3. That would be too many males to keep around. I guess in a few months, I will get hte answer to those qustions.

Thank you for taking a look at my beatiful babies. I am sure they are going to be yummy yummy tasting .

I chose gerbils because I figured that they would be less smelly. However, since then, I have also started keeping mice. The thing with mice is that if you only have females in the house, they don't smell much.

cheers.

Gerbils do indeed mate for life usually hence why its so hard to keep them in groups. I don't suggest keeping them in groups really.. I've had rotten luck with it... pups being eaten... other females being killed.. males being killed. Its far better to keep the pair's seperate.... There's no worry like with rats or mice of whether or not the mother has enough milk.. usually anyway. I've bred and owned Gerbils for 10 years and never had that problem...