This section aims to provide information on:

First aid
Ailments
My own experiences, including ear cut, abscess and scent gland tumour
Checking the Health of your Gerbil - How to hold them.

 

Gerbils are normally very hardy and healthy animals and you can expect your Gerbil to live between two and three years as an average, obviously some can live longer, I have heard of some being 6 years.
As a basis, it is best that you keep your Gerbils from getting ill in the first place, the necessary measures are; a proper diet, fresh water, keeping the cage clean, sufficient cage space and good ventilation ie keeping the cage out of direct sunlight, keeping the bedding from becoming damp and keeping the cage away from draughts or loud noises ie hifi's or tv's.

First Aid
In extreme cases veterinary advice should be sought, however vets are not always available, so as a starting point try these:

Falls
A fall is not always too serious for a Gerbil, especially if it is only a minor fall during play, however if it is from your hands, desk or chair it could be more serious. it is often best to return the Gerbil back to its cage and leave it to recover whilst keeping an eye on it. The Gerbil should quickly recover, but if its shock persists, or the Gerbil is moving in obvious pain take your Gerbil to the vet ASAP.
Heat Exhaustion
This can be potentially fatal, and it must be taken seriously. The symptoms are trembling and lying still. If you do notice your Gerbils have these symptoms then take them to a darkened, well ventilated room and leave it to recover on their own.

Wounds
Fighting is a very common complaint, whether it serious or just a domination argument. However, Fighting is one of the most common causes of death amongst Gerbils. Gerbils can inflict wounds upon each other using their claws and incisor teeth. The best way to avoid this problem is by housing your Gerbils appropriately. Small wounds can be treated by cleaning the wound with a mild antiseptic solution. If it is a rather serious wound it is advisable to take the Gerbil to the Vet as germs could get trapped in the wound and abscesses will result.

Fits
Some Gerbils are prone to fits, and it is best not to breed from ones who do suffer from this illness. Fits can be triggered by over handling (if you have a lot of children around), overtiredness or other stress factors such as fighting. Gerbils will often recover if it is left alone.

Ailments

Colds

Gerbils can have colds, they show the same symptoms as humans and often it can be humans who pass the cold onto the Gerbil. So if you are taken ill, stay away from handling your Gerbils until better. The cold can spread amongst Gerbils, so although it may be best to separate the ill Gerbils, this could be a problem as once separated, it could be difficult to get the Gerbils paired together again.

Diarrhoea

Diarrhoea symptoms are unpleasantly smelling droppings or staining under the tail. this could be caused by their diet, are they having too many greens, or other vegetables? if so, an early vet visit is best, as the Gerbil will lose a lot of fluids through their droppings and this can be life threatening.

Fleas

Although rare, it is possible for the Gerbil to pick up fleas from a dog or a cat. it is best if you visit the vets for a suitable insecticide. it will also be necessary to clean the bedding and vacuum your carpets as the eggs from the fleas will drop off the Gerbils coats.

Mites

Gerbils can and do get mites, although fairly uncommon in the UK, I have heard a lot of cases in the US. Normally in the UK, the mites will be relatively harmless dust mites, which are easily treated and cause no real harm to the Gerbil other than being irritating. However, if you are highly unfortunate you may end up with blood sucking bird mites which are very hard to get rid of and can take weeks/months before you are free of them.

Immediate veterinary care should be sought, and ivermectin administered. The bird mites are very dangerous and if not treated quickly enough your gerbils can and will die because of the mites sucking their blood and weakening their immune system. Rigorous cleaning is needed, and if you have your Gerbils in glass tanks it is advisable to move them to a converted plastic storage box, as the mites lay their eggs in the glue on the glass tank, which will hatch and completely ruin all your hard work. Any wooden toys should be boiled, and plastic toys washed in bleach and left to air for a while. Glass tanks too should be washed in bleach and left unused for quite a while before moving any gerbils back into them.

A few people advise to wash yourself in head and shoulders shampoo, wash both your hair and your body, you will have to repeat this each time you clean out or re treat your gerbils with ivermectin - I think it's every three days. At any point you feel itchy (the mites will also live on you) you must wash your clothes at a high temperature and shower using head and shoulders.

In order to ensure you never contract mites, always freeze your food, bedding, toys etc before use. The main source of mites is hay and straw, so make sure you freeze that first. I once bought a bag of timothy hay, which looked to be untreated.. I was wary of using it because of hearing about it possibly carrying mites... By the time we used it, well you can guess... We looked at the hay through the plastic of the bag and it seemed to be literally crawling in little bugs... Were they mites?? I never hung around to find out. Now I don't go near it, however before that I had always used Russell Rabbit meadow hay (think it was...) and it had never had any problems, I think it was dust extracted and treated, perhaps this was why.

Sore nose and Eyes

Some Gerbils suffer from sore noses and sore eyes, sometimes with bleeding and ulceration. This is often caused by the Gerbil gnawing on metal bars, wood, or digging at the corner of the cage. Try placing objects in the corner where they are digging, ie an upside-down mug is often effective. or putting a new toy in the cage to keep the Gerbil occupied. The cage could also be unsuitable, ie one of those metal wired cages are often unsuitable as Gerbils kick their bedding out and spend most of their time chewing at the bars, this often results in the discolouration of the fur around the mouth and the rubbing-off of the fur on their nose. It is best to use a glass aquarium or solid plastic cage where the bedding won't be kicked out and the Gerbil can learn to make its own tunnels by patting down the bedding.

Tyzzer's disease

This disease is the most serious disease a Gerbil is likely to encounter and is often fatal. The symptoms are diarrhoea, lethargy, weakness, loss of appetite followed by collapse. Veterinary help should be sought ASAP. Tyzzer's is most common where large numbers of Gerbils are kept together, it is best avoided by a high state of hygiene. All toys and bedding must be destroyed and the cage or gerbilarium washed thoroughly and disinfected.

 

My Own Experiences

Monaco's cut

Right, well now the older boys are coming up to around 2 years old, we've just had our first major incident. Although it looked more major then it had turned out to be.

We, noticed a few weeks ago that Monaco had blood on his ear, we just assumed he'd scratched or caught it somewhere, over the next few weeks everything is fine. Until last night we noticed more blood, only this time there was loads. And I mean loads, Gerbils can bleed, and boy do they bleed!

After being advised to wash Monaco, by wrapping him up in a towel, just allowing his head to be out and then pouring warm water onto the area. This was to wash the blood away and also so we could check for any bites or cuts on him. All we noticed was what looked like a cut, but we weren't sure as the blood was washed away leaving it almost impossible to see anything else there.
After leaving him to dry off and calm down a little, we left him and Phoenix in a carrier over night monitoring them incase it was a fight. As I've never had to do anything like this before it's not that easy because you just don't know what it is you're looking out for. So the decision was to go the vet anyway to make sure, incase it was a tumour or cyst. We didn't think it could be a tumour or cyst as you'd expect him to have a head tilt, or problems with balance. So that almost ruled that possibility out for certain.
Vets it was then!

He's been to the vet and they said that there was a small scratch in his ear, wow all that blood from a small scratch! So he's got some ear drops, to be used once a day for a week.

I've also been officially christened, my first bite to draw blood when I was doing his drops. Got me in a really soft tender place too, along the bend of your index finger...

Now, I just know you're wondering why on earth would someone take pics of their gerbil with blood all over it. Well, as it happens I was talking to Eddie, the breeder and NGS member on the net at the time but he was away cleaning tanks. I wanted to show him and see what he thought of it, so I could get advise over what to do next. Now you see, there is some logic to my sickness!

Well, he's some pics for you to enjoy of his injury! Anyone that is a little squeamish might wish not to have a look at them honest, it looks much worse than it is.

 

 

 

Kobe's Eye problem

We recently noticed (well must be a few weeks ago now...) that Kobe had a lump above his eye, at first we thought that perhaps it was an infection where Kobe had perhaps managed to scratch his eyelid with some wood and then it was infected, or it could also have been an infected hair root.

After a couple of weeks, we thought it would now be best if we took him to the vet after bathing the lump in salt water hadn't really worked other than stopped it looking so red and angry. The vet told us that it could be an abscess as there was a small yellow spot underneath the eyelid against the eye. We were prescribed Baytril, and although it was unlikely to help as Abscesses do not have a blood supply (therefore the baytril would not get to the abscess) we still used it for the 7 days. The Abscess did appear to get smaller, but never totally went.

As it could still either be an abscess or an infected hair root, we have decided that unless it is visibly hurting Kobe or causing him major problems we will wait and see if it goes on its own accord.

Below are images, where the lump is easily visible - it is not very big, but you can tell there is a lump there.

 

We will see how things go, and hopefully no operation will be needed to clean out the lump.

We eventually decided that Kobe would need an operation, as the top eyelid became so swollen it was causing him problems when sleeping and probably when trying to see too. We found that whenever he went to sleep the hair on the lower lid would get caught underneath the top lid and his 'sleep' would end up crusting all around his eye. I know if it were me it would be upsetting and annoying, so it was only fair to try and get rid of the abscess totally.

Kobe was taken to the vet, and put in for an operation the next day, things went fine and you could barely see any kind of scar, I was told to try squeezing the wound to get rid of any access puss or if some has come back. Pete attempted it twice, the first was just a half hearted attempt but the second was more determined, nothing came out and we were scared of actually injuring his eye. On our follow up visit to the vet, he said everything looked good and we were to carry on with the antibiotics for another week to be sure that everything is ok, there's not much else we can do other than hope it doesn't return once more, if it does then it would mean another operation which would be unfortunate and perhaps not all that fair on him...

But that's an issue for another time...

Here is a photo of his eye a couple of days or so after the operation which took place on the 17June 2004, there's just a tiny little red dot, which is probably a scab from the cut.

 

And around 2 weeks later...

 

Kobe has yet another problem... This time a scent gland tumour!

Well Kobe is my first, and hopefully my last gerbil to have a scent gland tumour. At 2 1/2 I did not think he would be able to have an operation and decided to make the decision to leave him to live out his natural life. His tumour was first noticed on the 7th of November 2005 and by the 21st it really did seem bad, to the point I felt he needed the operation because every time I checked on him, he would have blood on his stomach, and after two weeks of bleeding, it is not good news.

Some gerbils will live out their life naturally without the scent gland effecting them... Whilst others will attempt to chew at the tumour to get it out, this I would guess means they are less likely to survive without surgery.

Kobe's appeared to be too aggressive and so I did not feel he would last much longer without causing himself to bleed to death...

Do off to the vets he went!

The vet felt that Kobe was otherwise healthy and so should make it through the surgery well. I had also noticed when checking his scent gland that his top teeth had snapped off and the bottom were overgrowing quite badly- so I requested he also clip the bottom teeth - Now I just hope his top teeth grow back fine and I do not need to keep on getting the teeth clipped...

He has since had the surgery and has recovered very well. The stitches that have been used are dissolvable, so no need to go back for them to be removed. He has been given shots of antibiotics and I do not need to administer any orally due to the nature of the tumour... Three days after surgery he will need a check up, to be sure everything is healing fine.

For now all he needs is to be kept warm, but he has his two mates to do that for him, plus plenty of extra tissue we've given them.

The day I noticed the tumour.

11th November, can see it is considerably larger already!

After surgery, as you can see it all looks very clean and tidy... I hope it remains this way!

Health Checks! - How to hold your Gerbil.

So, you're not sure how to hold your Gerbil when checking for things like scent gland tumour's or the teeth...

Well over the years I have enough practice and have found a fairly simple way to hold them. All you need to use is one hand, and hold the gerbil's shoulder with your thumb and index finger, then with the left over fingers use them to hold the back feet and body into the palm of your hand.

You do not need to hold on too hard, by holding the legs you are hopefully stopping them from wriggling around. It literally takes seconds to check the teeth and scent gland and you can let them go again!

Here you can see the method... Trust me I cam not holding too hard, but naturally the gerbil will try to get back upright, as they do not like being on their backs for long.

From the photograph you can clearly see the teeth, as well as the scent gland and the genitals. All look fine, this check must take a couple of second to complete. If you wish, you can use both hands, one to hold the gerbil initially and the other to try to check the mouth and teeth better. It just takes a little confidence and practice to get right - as well as your gerbils being used to what you are doing.