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Gerbil Breeders?

Hypancistrus

Hypancistrus

New member
Anyone here breeding gerbils? I am hoping to raise two litters with my animal behavior classes this year (we're also going to try and hatch out 6 or 8 chicken eggs from my MIL's stock) and am looking for good websites on gerbil genetics.

I've found some good stuff on overall breeding schemes, but very conflicting stuff on genetics for gerbils.

I just purchased a male tonight. He's young, about 5 months I am guessing, based on size, and is a burmese pattern.

These will be pets, not food. Some of my students will probably adopt them in pairs, but I'm willing to house whoever doesn't get adopted.

One other question I've not found an answer to... I know that unrelated same-sex trios usually do not work (I've never had it work longer than a month) and that 1.2 trios also don't work. But does anyone know if a father-son-son trio or mother-daughter-daughter or three same-sex siblings would work out?
 
Hypancistrus said:
Anyone here breeding gerbils? I am hoping to raise two litters with my animal behavior classes this year (we're also going to try and hatch out 6 or 8 chicken eggs from my MIL's stock) and am looking for good websites on gerbil genetics.

I've found some good stuff on overall breeding schemes, but very conflicting stuff on genetics for gerbils.

I just purchased a male tonight. He's young, about 5 months I am guessing, based on size, and is a burmese pattern.

These will be pets, not food. Some of my students will probably adopt them in pairs, but I'm willing to house whoever doesn't get adopted.

One other question I've not found an answer to... I know that unrelated same-sex trios usually do not work (I've never had it work longer than a month) and that 1.2 trios also don't work. But does anyone know if a father-son-son trio or mother-daughter-daughter or three same-sex siblings would work out?
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It's been a really long time since I've bred gerbils, but I think they are similar to breeding mice. That I know a lot about. I also did projects with my elementary students. Here's a couple tips...

First, I would never cage more than one male together. It doesn't work with mice and I think gerbils are at least as aggressive as mice. I would normally put three or four young females together with one same age male, so they would get used to each other. As soon as the females became breeding age the male would start breeding all of them. It sometimes works with just two females also. You can keep them all in a ten gallon tank.

Here's an example of one of my setups for mice....
MouseCageRH41007_TC.jpg

The mice would hide under the cardboard prop and make their nest there. They normally come out at night to eat, drink, and make merry. I just threw the food in a dry area in the open. I used mouse chow, cracked corn, sometimes a little raw oatmeal, and maybe a few sunflower seeds. They were very happy mice and had big litters.

BTW, the kids were very interested in everything. I combined science and math; reading, writing, and research; and a bunch of hands-on activities. In one activity we weighed a clutch of baby mice and took the average to find that an average day old pink weighs about 2 grams. We also kept schedules of their growth rates and how much they ate. We even weighed a mother before and after delivery and compared her weight gain to the size of the litter. Stuff like that.

I don't know anything about gerbil genetics, but with the mice we used colored mice....
MiceCrawlers-11gRH103007a_TC.jpg

The male was always white with pink eyes, because he carried the albino gene. All the colored females were het. for albinism; which meant all the colored babies would be het. and all the white ones would be homozygous for albinism. I kept and bred this colony for over thirty years with only two mice added along the way to the progeny of the original pair. Very hardy they are.

Hope this helps some... :cheers:
 
Mice and gerbils must be fairly different then...

You can house two males together as long as there are no females. I am still seeking a definitive answer on whether you can house more than two same sex gerbils together if they are family relations. I've found a gerbil list and hope to ask that question there.

And you cannot breed gerbils in harems like you do with mice. Gerbils have a matriarchal society in which the dominant female rules the roost and all others will be driven away. If you attempt to do a 1.2 pairing of gerbils, the most dominant female will kill the less dominant female.

From what I've read, most people do a 1.1 pair, and let the babies stay with the parents for 6-8 weeks. If you leave the babies in with the parents, they will often help the mother in caring for her next litter, and this in turn helps those young adult gerbils to be better parents in their own time.

I'm really suprised no one on here has been breeding gerbils. Glad though-- I hate the thought of a gerbil being fed to a snake. They're so personable.
 
Hypancistrus said:
Mice and gerbils must be fairly different then...
Wow! Sounds like you're going to be the gerbil expert. It's been so long I didn't remember much. But it seems there are some big differences. I hope you post some of the info you gain here. I'd love to learn more about them and see how your project goes.

Cheers..... TC
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I have a friend who used to breed gerbils for the raptors at the rehab center we volunteered at. She hated breeding them because they took so long to breed, had small litters, and the adults are picky about their mates. Some took months for her to find a mate that was compatible, then another several months before they would even breed. They were a lot of work, but very cute. I would go over there and throw in several toilet paper tubes and they would be chewed up in about 2 minutes.

She only kept 1.1 pairs in tanks because the alpha female would kill the other female. It seemed too complicated for me, but one of our educational eagles loved gerbil snacks.
 
I finally did get an answer to my questions. Same sex family groups can stay together forever, in any number (i.e. Dad and all his sons, mom and all her daughters) but trouble can be had when trying to introduce multiple unrelated gerbils, simply because it's not natural in the wild.
 
I bred gerbils for a little bit. As you already found out, families are usually fine together. I have had luck introducing "strangers" by keeping he cages (I used wire cages) right next to each other & frequently adding bedding from each cage into the other. After about two weeks, I thoroughly cleaned out the bigger cage & put them all in it & had no problems. Can't guarantee this will work all the time.
 
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