You should seek the advice of your veterinarian if your pet is ill as only he or she can correctly advise on the diagnosis and recommend the treatment that is most appropriate for your pet.

Gerbils (also called Jirds) are very popular pets because they are relatively easy to keep, they are friendly and they are interesting to observe. Here are 10 facts about Gerbils

1. Gerbils are rodents like rats and mice, and they like to gnaw materials like wood...so their environment needs to be of solid construction such as glass (tanks) or metal (cages) or plastic. Their environment should include something (eg a piece of wood, a log) that the gerbils can chew on, otherwise their teeth may grow abnormally.

2. On average gerbils live for 24-26 months, but the oldest recorded age for a gerbil is 8 years for a Mongolian gerbil which lived in Michigan USA (Guinness Book of Records)

3. In the wild there are over 40 species of gerbil . Only 2 species are commonly kept as pets : the Mongolian and the Libyan gerbils.

4. In the wild gerbils were originally desert dwellers, and so they can survive with very little water intake as they can conserve water very well and produce little urine. In fact, gerbils fed green vegetables may hardly drink any water at all, although they do need to have a supply of  fresh clean water available at all times and will take in about 4-10ml/day if they are not given fresh greens.  As they originate from hot climates gerbils prefer their environment to be kept dry and warm at 60-70⁰ F.

5. Gerbils are herbivores and mainly eat a mixture of seeds (eg sunflower seeds), cereals, vegetables (cabbage, carrots, lettuce) and fruits (apples). Complete commercial gerbil seed and grain mixes are available but these should be supplemented with fresh foods. Gerbils are active 24 hours a day and normally eat during the day and night, and so they should be allowed to feed ad lib ...with food being available all the time.

6. Gerbils can be kept in pairs (one male one female) but they are also social animals which live in colonies and they like to burrow and will create a complex labyrinth of chambers linked by tunnels. To encourage burrowing deep bedding (2cm minimum) is needed.

7. Because gerbils produce little urine and their faeces pellets are small and odourless, they only need to be cleaned out every few weeks using hot water , detergents and disinfectants. 

8. Breeding gerbils is easy and they will breed all year around if allowed to do so because females come into season every 5-6 days. Females can become pregnant from 10 weeks of age and pregnancy last for 24-26 days. On average they will  have 5 young pups (range 3-7) in each litter, but the largest litter on record was 15 to a gerbil kept in a breeding farm in Florida USA (Guinness Book of Records)

9. Young gerbils are between 70g and 135g body weight at birth, and they are born without any hair and their eyes are closed. Hair starts to appear at about 6 days of age, and the eyes open at about 16 days of age. Gerbils are mammals so the young live off their mothers milk for the first 3-4 weeks after which they are weaned on to solid foods.

10 Gerbils are very territorial and mark their environment with secretions from special glands on their abdomen, as well as with urine and faeces. Single pairs or colonies should be formed before puberty at 8 weeks of age . If new gerbils are introduced after this time there is likely to be fighting....sometimes to the death.

Last updated : September 2013