Gerbil pairing

[KingPythons]

Should it be one male for every 2 females or such?? So far my girl had 4 pups doesnt seem like she wants to be a mother so I might have to replace her.

[tomfromtheshade]

I always ran gerbils at a 1.1 ratio.

Gerbils aren't like rats and mice. They will fight and chew each other to shreds sometimes when you introduce them. So, when I found a pair that worked I let them be LOL. No sense in adding another woman in there. Its hard enough to pair one male and one female sometimes.

Maybe if you introduce them very young you could run more of a colony type situation.

[panthercz]

Gerbils aren't like rats and mice. They will fight and chew each other to shreds sometimes when you introduce them. So, when I found a pair that worked I let them be LOL. No sense in adding another woman in there. Its hard enough to pair one male and one female sometimes.

+1
Gerbils are such a pain to breed sometimes that I think they are *FAR* more trouble than they are worth.

[GoingPostal]

I tried breeding gerbils and didn't have much sucess, gave up after a couple litters, they take a long time to get down to business, run them 1.1 or the females may fight. I was given a group of females, with one separated out as she had given birth and she got into the other side of the carrier and instant blood drawing fight, they were vicious. Easier to intro male/female when they are under 8 weeks. I bought young males from the pet store and matched them with females from the original litter, didn't have any problem but it can be hard if they are adults. One of mine had 7 her first litter, great mom, the other had 1 and buried it in the bedding and it died. Two months went by without another litter and I fed the whole lot of them off.

[BAMReptiles]

my gerbils are in a 1.2 set up, if they werent free i wouldnt have gotten them tho. gerbils are terrible, they fight/kill each other, have small very spaced out infrequent litters that take forever to wean lol. but i do make a little cash off em so its all good.

[suzuki4life]

I ran gerbils 1.2 or 1.3 in 10 gallon tanks.

get chew proof water bottles.

Give them tons of things to chew on and keep them fed.

Only problem I experienced was places to sell them too. When they're hot, you never have enough. When they're not, you don't have enough space.