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Gerbil monogamy?

Jadie.Glitch

Jadie.Glitch

:) colubridstudios.com :)
Can I put more than one female (like 3 actually) in with one male gerbil and have them breed productively?

I figured that in order to keep up with my snakes then I am going to have to have at least three breeding pairs, and my dad suggested that I just put three females in with the one male.

What do you think?

Thanks a bunch!
 
Gerbils are not like rats or mice, they breed monogamously and should have pairs. It can take months for two gerbils to get around to mating. It's not unheard of that a gerbil wastes away after it's counter part disappears.
 
Saffleur said:
Gerbils are not like rats or mice, they breed monogamously and should have pairs. It can take months for two gerbils to get around to mating. It's not unheard of that a gerbil wastes away after it's counter part disappears.
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I'll second that. It took my first pair about a month or two before they started to breed, but they produced quite regularly after that. When raising holdbacks from that original pair, I noticed the female produced less babies if her daughters were still in there with her and the daughters grew more slowly. You'll have much better luck with litters if you have 3 cages with a male-female pair in each.
 
When we got gerbils (some time ago) it was just as pets... we were supposed to have recieved two females and then one day there were babies! :rolleyes: Since we didn't want babies we ended up seperating the males and females... sadly the biggest male killed the others (which was shocking to me, though I'm not real up to speed on gerbils), but the girls were just fine.

Anyway, good luck with yours! Curiously, why are you using gerbils and not mice? Is there a difference somehow? I'm just curious. :)
 
I've come to find out that gerbils don't reak as badly as mice (I can't STAND mice, they stink SO badly and it happens QUICK too). And our breeding pair is kind of like our pets instead of just "the breeders".

They also just seem like a better made animal. More muscle instead of squishy fat like mice. I feel like they are friendlier than mice as well. I haven't ever worried about getting bit by them like I did with the mice. And my parents like them a lot... I'm probably just crazy for all these reasons but they really are just a personal preference of mine... but no REAL proven health benefit to the snakes that I am aware of...
 
Me and my sister had gerbils when we were kids. we got them young and were supposed to get 2 girls well you can guess what happend, and after they multiplied to 27 my parents decided that we had better separate them so we split their huge habitrail cage in 2 and put the girls in one and the boys in one. well everyone got along ok and all, but my female chewed her own tail off she was so upset at being away from her mate. I think she had 3 litters total the last ones were a little early and only 2 made it. none of the babies tried to mate they may have not quite been old enough but they were getting there. It was actually very cool to watch cause all of the babies and the male would help with the new pups.

Sorry I'm not much help with any of your questions...
 
Yes, it is definitely neat to watch them all help out with the babies. Oh, and the last litter not making it very well may have been due to the fact that the female was stressed and couldn't care very well for them, as well as the male not being there to help out with the care. From what I have read and seen personally, the male does A LOT of the work after the actual birth.
 
Jadie.Glitch said:
Yes, it is definitely neat to watch them all help out with the babies. Oh, and the last litter not making it very well may have been due to the fact that the female was stressed and couldn't care very well for them, as well as the male not being there to help out with the care. From what I have read and seen personally, the male does A LOT of the work after the actual birth.
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Sorry I didn't specify, but she had 5 but 3 of them were stillborn, of the other 2 one was tiny he was half the size of his sister. She had them all before we took the males out so I don't think that caused it, we thought that maybe she had too many litters too fast but I don't know. Luckily she took really good care of the ones that were alive. It was so sad when she chewed her tail.
 
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