How much and how often should a gerbil be fed?

Question

My 17 yr. old son just brought a gerbil home from his friend with no instructions about feeding. The bedding had instructions on the bag, but not the food. Whatever information you can give will be appreciated. I hope he survives our cat...LOL...So far, our fish has!

Answer 1

You should put a bowl in there that has food in it all the time. He's probably on a different schedule than you are and its kinda hard to tell when a gerbil is hungry.. He'll feed himself, stop when he's full...but he should be able to access food whenever he feels like it. He should also always have water available. Get him a wheel to run on ,some tubes to climb through, and wooden blocks to chew on(small animals love chewing, and they need to chew, its healthy for their teeth). A little hut to sleep in and chew on would probably be appreciated too.


http://exoticpets.about.com/cs/gerbils/a/gerbilcare.htm


http://www.aspca.org/site/PageServer?pagename=pets_gerbilcare


if you read the aspca site..I think their estimate on the cost of keeping a gerbil is a *little* bit high (extremely over priced) For litter- stores like walmart, and some pet stores sell huge bags of pine litter for about 5 bucks. I buy them all the time. I have 2 rabbits so I go through them pretty quickly but for a small cage like a hamster/gerbil, it'd probably last for months..and that alone will cut down on the cost (its better than buying the small bags of litter for 2 or 3 dollars each time)

Plus I think they purposely over estimated the price so that you'd only get a gerbil if you were REALLY serious about owning one....so I guess thats good.

Answer 2

Gerbils and all rodents will self regulate. So, get a rodent safe bowl, fill it, and keep an eye to see how much he/she eats.

If it is anything like ones I've had before, it will likely be a bit picky and not want to eat certain bits of the food and will leave them in the bowl. If you notice the same stuff being left time after time, then toss it out and refill the whole bowl.

Otherwise, wash the bowl once a week, keep the water fresh daily and make sure the gerbil has something to chew on - toilet paper tubes are realy good.

P.S. - if you have a Habitrail setup, you might want to fix the watter bottle in better. Sometimes they figure out how to get the bottle out and climb out the spot where it was.

Answer 3

Give it fresh water every day, and keep food in there constantly. They will eat the seed, but leave the husk in the bowl, so make sure there is actually food in the bowl and not just the husks of seeds.

If its only one gerbil, you probably wont have to put new food in its bowl but every other day. Just check it every day to see if there IS food there.

As for the cat, I do recommend when you're not around to supervise that you lock the gerbil up in a room the cat can't get to. If your kitty is a hunter, the gerbil stands less chance of survival than the fish. -grin-

Answer 4

I have two adult gerbils named Chip and Dale. Depending on this gerbils age, I feed mine about a 1/3 cup everyday, along with a 2 tablespoons of fresh cut up veggies (carrots,Celery,cucumber) and 1 tablespoon on fresh fruits (apples,bananas..) depending on the age, size, and how much her/he eats. If there are a lot of sunflowers in his/her food, maybe try to find a different food, as too many can cause skin problems. Here is a pretty good website on gerbil care. http://www.gerbils.co.uk/index.html Also, I can not stress enough on making sure the gerbil has plenty to chew on all sorts of cardboard boxes like tissue or cereal make great toys. Maybe if its young enough, get it a friend.

Answer 5

Offer the snake food at least once a week unless it's settled down for the winter, then, just make sure that it has fresh water at least every other day. The reason you want your tortoise to have an empty stomach for hibernation is that any leftover food will rot in it's stomach & intestines & this could harm or even kill the tortise.

Answer 6

gerbils will eat till they are full, so all you have to do is make sure they always have fresh food in their cage. they aren't going to overeat, but make sure they also have lots of material to chew on, like wood treats and even cardboard. my gerbils love empty toilet paper rolls, Kleenex boxes and kleenex, which they will tear up to make a soft nest.

Answer 7

Definately change his water every day and just keep an eye on his bowl of food. Depending on how much you put in you could be changing it every day, or every other day.

Answer 8

probally ounce a day for a healthy one>GOOD LUCK!!!!! :-)