I'm keeping this small diary as a guide for if I ever get any new Gerbils I can see how long it took for them to be friendly and come to us easily. The Girls are still jumpy during the day, obviously they're expecting a bird to swoop down, so I'm not surprised the boys are like that. The only difference is that the Girls will happily come out to sniff my finger and come out of the cage. So far the boys will run away... but then again so do the girls if I move my hand too quickly. What am I worrying about?!! :P

08th July 2003 Say hello to our newest additions to the clan. I don't have many pictures yet as my batteries were dieing... So don't worry there will be plenty more added on over the next few months or so.

The first day we brought the two boys home I picked them up and let them run around my body, they fell asleep on me which was a nice good sign. However later on in the night Pete decided he wanted to pick York up again because he thought he could see blood in his nose, and well if there was blood then he was planning on moving some things in the tank to see if that's what caused it... Him simply rubbing his nose against some wood. Well he picked him up and the first thing I knew about it was when Pete was holding him in my face asking me if I could see blood :P So I took him and he seemed ok, it was just dirt from digging. Then when Pete went to put him back in his cage he noticed that York was having a poo... As all Gerbils do (and especially young ones) so he went to pick it off his hand, only York kinda... slid off his hand onto the bed (the bed was only about 2cm from his hand) then he just stood still, and when Pete went to pick him up he just squeeked very loudly. I thought perhaps he was having a fit, but as he wasn't shaking it seemed fine, although as I have now learnt it was a mild form of a fit. I think he was just too stressed out with the move, so although they did fall asleep on me they obviously weren't fully comfortable yet with their surroundings. York seems fine now, but it is still a worry and I hope we still manage to form a good bond like we have with Sydney and Kyoto. Now I have definately learned the lesson not to handle them too much, even if it wasn't my idea and I didn't want to pick him up, this means I can blame Pete ;) I know that's cruel, so I'll feel guilty about it too.

I'm sure I wasn't this worried about Sydney and Kyoto when we got them... They're all from the same breeder, I guess they just have different parents and after-all.. they had only just been moved to the pet shop from the breeder... so obviously they travelling too much in one day isn't good for them.

10th July 2003 I'm now happy to say that the boys are a lot better and getting used to things as each day goes. Kobe has jumped out of the cage and then straight back in... They've discovered where the water is at last so no more worries.

11th July 2003 Things seem to be moving on rather quickly, the boys are happy to come out, I've already had them running around on the bed, they don't seem too alarmed when being handled, though Kobe has a habit of peeing on me every time he's out, but that doesn't surprise me. I've introduced them to the sandbath which Kobe seems to love and almost constantly rolls over in, although all too quickly for me to get a photo of. Kobe also allowed me to stroke his ears whilst he ate, which is a good sign. I try to take them out frequently but not for too long each time, just so they get used to it.
As I was originally wanting two females, a Dove and a siamese we have decided still to persue the idea of getting a siamese, just we'll get a male and add him to York and Kobe. We'll be off to get him on Sunday :)

13th July 2003 Got our Siamese today, Pete insists on calling him Dallas... So as it seems I have no say in the naming of these three that's what he'll be called. We had to travel to Coventry to get him off an NGS breeder, it was a very hot day and on the way down the coach didn't have it's fans on... However on the way back, they did... not that it helped at all because it wasn't airconditioning so we were still really hot, only we had a small 5 week old Gerbil with us this time too. When we finally got back we thought Dallas was having the same fit as what York did as he was really still in his cage, only I soon decided he was just finally falling asleep because his eyes began to close. I know how he felt, by the time I got back I had a migrane, so I too felt really bad. (I then got another Migrane later on in the evening :_( )
Well, we left Dallas for a little while and then he started to run around playing again, so we eventually felt that we should now introduce York and Kobe to him. I took him out of the carrier, we then managed to get York and Kobe in there, we had thick gloves at the ready, our hearts were pounding and put Dallas in. All that happened were they both sniffed Dallas's mouth really closely and that was it. All it was, was an extended greeting! Well I never expected it to be THAT easy! They are now all quite happily asleep, we finally have a Gerbil heap :) Dallas seems very curious and already really happy to come out, he's climbed out of the cage a number of times for me to pick him up, which is really sweet.

 

December 2006

I first noticed York had a scent gland tumour on friday 20th October, it was still fairly small but obviously needed to have surgery fairly soon, we decided to see how it went over the next few days... However by the Sunday it was HUGE, so on the Monday and appointment was booked and he had his surgery on Wednesday 25th, according to Pete it was huge by this time!!! Amazing how quickly the tumours can grow, and I thought Kobe's was quick growing!!

He's recovered well from surgery and the fur is almost completely grown back, so now we have both brothers that had a scent gland tumour... Anyone else say genetical??!