This section will provide information on:

Housing
Waterbottle holders for tanks

Housing

Before you buy a Gerbil it is best you have it's home set up already, this way the Gerbil will suffer minimum stress, as if you don't have things set up they will have to temporarily live in a small box or carrier :P

The best type of homing is the glass aquarium or some kind of plastic tank.

Wire cages and habitrails, rotastaks or similar aren't really suitable for a gerbil.

The wire cages, as you will soon discover are unsuitable because you a)can't put much bedding in b) the Gerbil will kick most of the bedding out due to its natural digging instincts c) The Gerbil will chew at the metal bars all day... and all night... and in its sleep if it were possible.

When we first got Orlando we didn't know a great deal about Gerbils, I'd had one when I was young but I didn't really remember them kicking the bedding out as being a major thing. Well anyway we soon discovered that it's a really bad idea to have a wire cage. We ended barely putting any bedding in at all. Poor Orlando, he must have been so bored. Sorry Orlando, I really am. Then when we got Phoenix and Monaco we decided to get a Ferplast Duna for them, it was much better and allowed them to have masses of bedding in there as well as have tunnels and lots of fun. We also got one for Orlando and only kept the wire thing for when we clean the tanks out. Poor Orlando never even knew how to make a tunnel because he'd lived for about 7 months in a wire cage, he simply hadn't learnt the tunneling skills and all he wanted to do was chew on the metal grid at the top of the Duna all the time!

Also, we got a Habitrail SpaceStation from a web site, as it was in the sales and it was just one of those things that was too cheap not to buy it if you get me... Anyway, I decided to let Sydney and Kyoto have a little play in it, and mainly to see if they could learn how to use a wheel after never having one in their tanks.

Well, Kyoto did work it out, as did Sydney - but she didn't seem all that interested in it. Well, within a few minutes of being in the cage Sydney was digging and attempting to chew her way out!! I know of people who kept their Gerbils in a spacestation, apart from one being way too small for a pair of adult gerbils, they also discovered that the Gerbils love chewing plastic, they ended up almost completely chewing away at the little added level the spacestations have.

If your Gerbils chew at metal too much it can:

A) Cause the Gerbil to get a sore nose and rub all its fur away.. Imagine doing this kind of damage to your own nose... NOT very nice.

B) The metal will also stain the fur of the gerbil around the mouth area where it chews, although not exactly dangerous, it's still not nice for the Gerbil...

Imagine chewing at some bars non-stop, you'd end up in a loony bin!

Plastic rotastak or similar also can have plenty of downsides. Yes they may look fun for the Gerbils, but essentially they're not very suitable. Gerbils can and will escape from them if they're determined. As they love to chew, they can quite easily chew their way out if you're not careful and check every little thing. Also, Gerbils seem to love to pee in the plastic tubes, which become rather smelly and are quite difficult to wash. They are much more suitable for Mice and Hamsters.

I've seen some rather interesting tanks which have these added on, for extra living space, so this is a possibility, as it can add extra area for the Gerbil. But it's just as much fun making something out of wood for the Gerbils to play on, sleep under or chew. You must also remember that it can be difficult to catch your beloved Gerbil if they have so many tubes to run away into, try to get something that is large enough for them to be happy in, but also small enough for them to naturally want to explore outside.

Other tanks you can use are the plastic Duna style tanks, these are made of two moulded pieces of plastic, with a top and a bottom. On the top there is a grid, which allows access to your Gerbils. So far I have found them to be fine, and never had any Gerbils escape or chew their way out of them yet. Our oldest Duna style tank is three and a half so far, so they do last well.

There are some weak points that will need covering up, this is because the Gabber comes with two water bottle holes, one for the average water bottle you buy in shops and another that is the size of their own bottle. This bottle needs removing because your Gerbil will chew it and you'll end up with water everywhere, so you are best taking it out and covering it up in some way. One way we use is:

On newer tanks however, I cut a rectangle of wire mesh and then use a screw, washer and bolts, thread through the mesh and the hole in the plastic, put a bolt on the outside and tighten. It works just as well as the wood, but just doesn't give them something to chew on.

The water bottle will also need to be attached, we use some thin wire and thread through holes that the company drill already! Very nice of them, as the Ferplast Dunas' don't have this.

Of course there are plenty of things you can add to tanks in order to make them more interesting. You can add wooden levels, shelves, bridges, ceramic pots, plant pots, tubes, hang things from the mesh lid like bird toys, tubes or have things like branches or driftwood in the tank. It is best to add these things to enrich their environment - it's better in the long run for your Gerbils as it gives them something to do mentally rather than sit around looking quite bored and developing stereotypical behaviours like digging in a corner or chewing constantly at something.

I have some pieces of driftwood in tanks, but they are small and only really good for young pups, as the adults can't dig under them well, so if you plan on adding driftwood then make sure it is large and a good shape for gerbils to dig under and climb on. Tree branches can be used, but you must be careful in case they are poisonous, fruit trees are often quite good so apple tree branches can be used... I am unsure about others though, so be sure to check it out first, also you must freeze or put any branches in the oven first as they could have nasties under the bark etc.

Water Bottles

When using glass tanks, you will notice that there isn't anywhere to put your water bottle. Well, many people make water bottle covers. This is made out of any left over metal that you made your tank lid from.

What we did was, get a strip of metal wire mesh, measure it out so it would fit around the bottle, you need to also make sure there is a flap at the bottom. So literally there are four sides and one of those sides needs an extra length so that you can bend it over and the gerbils can not attack the bottle from underneath.

In two sides, the front and the back you need a hole cut out for the spout and one for the back to clip onto the bottle and then hang over the edge of the tank.

In order for the mesh to stay in a box shape, we used some thin wire and tied it around the box where it met another edge. Almost like using a food bag tie. This means that the mesh will stay in shape. You may also want to file down the mesh as it can be sharp, even to us never mind your gerbil. So where you cut along, be sure to file it down smooth - Metal files are cheap from your local hardware store, I think we bought ours for around £1!!