# Gerbils vs Mice...



## jessierose2006

Ok. I was wondering about gerbils...

Are they easier to breed than mice?

Are they smellier than mice?

Are they mean/nicer than mice?

Do they have more problems than mice?

Are their cage requirements the same?

Do they seem to house easier together (bucks and bucks, bucks and does)

I have seen gerbils at the store and they look kinda cool and seem to come in a wide range of colors also. And just wanted to know if there was any BIG difference in them and mice.


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## Stina

Gerbils produce VERY little odor. I have 3 (I am looking for a home for them actually....you want them?...lol), 2 females and a male, but my male is infertile. They're not as intelligent as mice...they don't understand heights (they will walk off of things...like hands). Mine have never tried to bite...but I don't really trust them as much as the mice...I have known some nasty gerbils though. They need more space than mice....I have my 3 in a 20 gallon long. Adults can be extremely difficult to introduce to one-another (even bucks to does)...but if they are raised together they are fine. Gerbils are also very twitchy....everything they do is a jerky movement...they don't move fluidly like mice and rats do and can make me feel twitchy watching them...lol


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## jessierose2006

lol so reading this I would probably be better off keeping mice then. As I am good with the space my mice take up which is about a 20 gallon tank and 2 smaller tubs for my male(s). Oh so i would have even more fights with gerbils than i would with mice? Because i read online that they get along good in groups... (guess i was lied to again by the stupid internet...)

lol yeah i went to the petstore and they had one by itself... it looked evil lol. it was kinda doing a head sway kinda like a drunk. i think it was ill tho.


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## Stina

lol....you should take my gerbils...you know you want them...hahaha

They can be introduced when they are young...and will do well in a group....but once they are fully matured it is difficult to introduce newbies.

Did the swaying gerbil have pink eyes?...if so its not uncommon for them to do that.


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## bethmccallister

I've had gerbils in the past...and they didn't impress me at all. They seem inferior intellectually compared to a mouse. My mice entertain me for hours while they go about their day but a gerbil acts like they have a severe attention deficit disorder. I can't even remember their names now which is sad but says a lot about their endearing pet qualities.


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## jessierose2006

:lol: your right i do! BUT my hubby would strangle me if i brought something else home before getting rid of something else. 

Actually it did have pink eyes! It was a PEW. is this normal for pink eyed gerbils?

Oh i see. I do like my meece. just didnt know if there was any major difference in them.

I guess i will stick with my mice for now and maybe later on down the road i will get gerbils idk.


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## bethmccallister

You could bring home a gerbil as a pet to see for yourself and tell the hubby that it's a deformed mouse baby, lol.


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## Aussie_Dog

jessierose2006 said:


> :lol: your right i do! BUT my hubby would strangle me if i brought something else home before getting rid of something else.
> 
> Actually it did have pink eyes! It was a PEW. is this normal for pink eyed gerbils?.


PEW gerbils supposedly can't see very well, so their swaying is akin to a cat's head bobbing: they're trying to see their subject a little better. I have a black boy and a white boy, and the white one sways. He's also not as skittish as the black boy, probably because he can't see as well as Domino (the black). Giacomo (the white) will hop onto my hand easily enough, but Domino will still fly into hiding if I move too quick.

Another thing: they're NOISY! They're constantly gnawing on something, either the cardboard tubes or the wood house they have (they chewed a second, separate entrance/exit hole in one side. It amazed me when I saw it). They also love to dig, so you constantly hear a shuffling, rustling noise of the bedding being kicked around. My mice aren't chewers (or diggers), so I can't compare a Gerbil to a Mouse in the noise department.


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## Jack Garcia

I'm obviously biased toward mice, but I like gerbils. I don't have any currently but I've had a few in the past. They're little paper shredders, really. They chew more than any rodent I've ever kept, except spiny mice (they chew about the same amount). That's the biggest difference between gerbils and mice that I noticed--you can't keep gerbils in plastic cages. Thinly-spaced wire or glass tanks only. They will chew out of plastic in a small amount of time. They're the only animal I've ever seen actively chewing glass--not the silicone that was holding it together (it had sense been decimated), but the glass itself. They chew _a lot_.



> Are they easier to breed than mice?


They're about the same level of difficulty, except that females often fight and bring blood. Hearing of them killing each other is not uncommon (sort of the opposite of mice, where males sometimes fight and kill each other). They're not as easy to introduce as mice.



> Are they smellier than mice?


Being desert animals, gerbils produce very little pee and their smell is almost non-existent. Due to this, you can change their cage less frequently than for the same number of mice.



> Are they mean/nicer than mice?


Mine were always sweet, but they didn't particularly like to be held. They just sort of tolerated it. They never bit me. In this regard, I always recommend mice over hamsters but I don't object to gerbils.



> Do they have more problems than mice?


Do you mean health problems? There's a foot problem in gerbils wherein it breaks or sprains and one or more feet is limp the rest of the gerbil's life. I've seen it in my own and in pet store gerbils, but I don't know what's it called. I heard from the American Gerbil Society people that it was inherited but I don't know how.



> Are their cage requirements the same?


Other than the chewing mentioned above, gerbils are about twice the size of mice (or a little more) and need bigger cages. But they need to be cleaned less often, so it's a trade-off, really.

One other thing. The AGS has been on-again and off-again for the past few years so I get the impression that the gerbil fancy isn't as developed as the mouse fancy. For certain, the species as a whole isn't, having appeared in the US within many of our lifetimes, becoming popular pets in the 1970s, having been imported just before for use in labs (in the 1950s and again in the 1960s). That may or may not be a concern of yours, though.

Hope that helps!


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## jessierose2006

Yes very much Thank you so much every one for your most knowledgeable answers 

I think i may just stick with mice.


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## Stina

I think you should come take my gerbils and see what you think for yourself......lol


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## jessierose2006

:lol: .... mmmm......mmmhhmmm.... you know your really a BAD influence on someone with a love for all kinds of animals LOL!


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## Stina

hahahaha...I just want to find them a new home...lol


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## NuttySian

If only you were near me I'd take them! Think they could fly themselves over in a little plane? :lol: 
We looked after 2 girls a few months back and it was loads of fun. We were fascinated how often their tunnel system changed in a day and how often they were out and about without us waking them.
The only noise they made though was when running in their wheel, they chewed their wooden bits and dug around but it was very quiet. They didn't even chew the bars of their tank topper!


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## webzdebs

Gerbils make amazing pets (I should know I have 11 of them), they breed as easily as any other rodent and introductions can be tricky but not impossible and in most cases with perseverence can work out brilliantly.

I've never seen any circumstances where males and females can be housed together if the intention is not to breed, they will form a hierarchy and only the dominant male and female will breed but this is dangerous on the gerbils as there could be fights between males and the female can become stressed and ill from too many litters.

They should be housed in a minimum 20 gallon tank for a pair adding 5 gallons for each addition gerbil, unless the gerbils are related family members (like dad and sons or mother and daughters) I have found that they tend to do better as pairs for females or pairs or trios in males.

If you have any questions at all about gerbils give me a shout I'm happy to help out.


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## evansrabbitranch

I bred gerbils for 16 years. They have to have split cages to introduce any over the age of 12 weeks. Otherwise they will kill each other. They HAVE to have a wheel to help run off their manic energy and they HAVE to have cardboard or chews to control their chewing or they destroy their cage and get loose. They are also limited in their colors, BUT, they don't stink!


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## Bella

I apologize if this has already been said - I didn't read through everyone's posts.

I have no personal experience with gerbils, but I have been told that females are far more aggressive than males. They will fight, and will need to be housed seperately if they are not litter mates

Now... having not had personal experience I cannot back this up. But if you were planning on breeding them, be prepared to have lots of cages!


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## Stina

My 2 females are not related....but were placed together at a young age and have never fought.

My 3 don't have a wheel and do fine without it. They even lived in a plastic kritter keeper for a short while (during qt after a rodent show) and didn't try to chew out at all. They do always have things to chew though...lol I tried giving them plastic houses at point and they completely decimated them!


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## evansrabbitranch

I lost a lot of gerbils before I had a necropsy done and found out it was swallowed plastic killing them. I avoid plastic toys at all costs with rodents. I must have had extra chewy lines mine were killer with those teeth. They would go through a full sized cheerios box in 2 days! At one point mine were such obsessive chewers they produced their own bedding. I did not have to buy anything for their cages, just give cardboard and such for them to chew down. With split cage intros they do fine. AGSgerbils.org is the best site for info on gerbils that is recommended by the American Gerbil Society.


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## jessierose2006

yeah... I like easy pets so.... no crazy killer gerbils for me


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## racingmouse

I`ve kept gerbils aswell in the past and I adore them, but they are very different from mice. They don`t like to be held, they need a large tank filled with substrate as gerbls tunnel and dig. They should be kept in at least single sex pairs, but females can and do fall out more frequently. `De-clans` as it`s called. Gerbils are very territorial and should NEVER be introduced to a strange gerbil unless a proper housing cage-split is in place and you know what you are doing. I would`nt advise a begginer to try this without good guidance.

Healthwise, they can suffer from scent gland tumours (males inparticular have a thin, visible line along their tummy) which they scent things with. It does`nt smell of anything to us, just gerbils! These scent glands can form a `pimple` sometimes and these can grow bigger and affect internal organs if they are not removed surgically by a good vet. A gerbil will feel this little pimple/lump and attempt to chew it, making it bleed. So you must run a finger over this gland every now and then to check for any abnormalities or swellings. I`ve had two males have these glands removed in the past and both recovered fine, although one tumour returned sadly and barney passed away as a result of it.

Teeth are another concern. If a gerbil breaks any of it`s four front teeth, things can go very wrong. They need to see a vet every three to four weeks to have the teeth trimmed back and they never eat the same. They stop chewing cardboard and usually need hand fed a lot of the time.


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## evansrabbitranch

Funny, mine loved to be held. You have to hand tame them from the time their eyes open same as mice. Of course I bred rather than just bought store stock and mine came from other breeders and no pet shop stock but one. Surprisingly my one pet store gerbil lived to be almost 8 years old. I kept very good records back then and she was my only PEW ever. That's another plus for gerbils they do live longer and good stock can get almost as big as a syrian hamster.


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## Loganberry

I had a black gerbil when i was a teenager, who lived on his own and was really nice to hold. He was great.

Late last year i went to meet the most successful exhibition breeder of dwarf hamsters in the UK, and she also has gerbils that are from Dutch stock - they are huge, bigger than the general show stock in the UK, and really friendly and tame - bigger than syrian hamsters. She said when she shows them, if it's an overnight show (she goes to Holland and Sweden to show) she has to take the gerbil and his or her cagemates to the show as well, then split them up for the show and put them back together again straight after - too many hours apart and you can't get them back together again. A pain, but they are worth it. Really nice animals.


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