In my opinion the best small animal pet is the gerbil. Gerbils have such lovely characters and unless you hurt them they will never bite.

NATURAL HISTORY

There are about 80 species of gerbils in the wild. They are found stretching from China and Mongolia through Asia and into Africa. Gerbils are nocturnal creatures, this means that they are active during the night but sleep during the day. Their name comes from the generic name for these animals, Gerbillus.

ACCOMMODATIONS

The essentials of a good home are that it is spacios, escape-proof easy to clean, and loaded with useful items for a gerbil. Gerbils love to chew and dig so make sure you give them things to chew and plenty of sawdust or woodflakes. Gerbils like to make a nest to sleep in so make sure you give them plenty of bedding to do this with.

BREEDING

Gerbils can be sexed at the age of about 4 weeks. The male is able to breed for most of its life the female stops breeding at the age of about 2 years. By this time her last litter are likely to be smaller in number.

If a male and two females have been reade together from an early age, no introductory procedures are needed. The problem here is that the females will probaly become pregnant as soon as they can. It is better that breeding operations are delayed by keeping the sexes apart until they are 12-15 weeks.

THE BIRTH

GERbils are born blind and quite helpless. They do grow quickly however. Their eyes open at about eight days and are fully open by the 10th-12th day. Their fur grows almost immediatly. Within about seven days they should have a thin layer of hair.

FEEDING

Gerbils are not hard to feed. You can get good quality dried food from most petshop however to live into a ripe old age they do need fresh fruits and vegatables. It ranges fromthe outer leaves of cabbages to dried rasins, from spinach to carrots and from dandelions to apples.