Breeding Gerbils?

Question

I am going to start breeding gerbils i have an idea how to do it but if anyone has any tips i would be greatful

Answer 1

1 . these are gerbils not just rodents theyre unique, they have different qualitiesand are not like hamsters when it comes to breeding!!!
2 . dont take the male out and it isnt as simple as putting them together for a night  and she is pregnant , they actually need a bond and can take a few weeks even months before they even mate.
3 . mate females in their prime 5-15 months if any later the females may only give birth to 1 pup, she wont produce enough milk, the baby can get stuck in the birth canal as it is too big from getting all the nutrients from mum and can cost lots to go to the vets to get the baby outta there so that she doesnt die, unfortunatley, no matter what this 1 baby will die, even with a young mother that has 1 she wont produce enough milk ,,and males from 12 weeks onwards
4 . never take the male out of the tank like a week before she gives birth!! if you are going to do this properly you have to do at least 2 litters as the mother should never be alone with the pups, and when you decide to seperate the pair leave a female daughter or 2 to help raise the next litter and put sons with dad. if you cant do 2 litters dont bother breeding its not just for fun , you NEED to be extra carful and have them have 2 litters!
5 . gerbil pairs can have from 10-12 litters a year and in each litter there can be from 3-8 babies and from the exception of a few deaths a mother can have from 30-72 babies each year, so you need to find homes for them.
6 .  you will not make money from breeding them , you will be lucky to break out even. only breed gerbils for the love of gerbils or a hobby , but you need to make sure you make time for them, its a tricky job.
7 . its not ok to breed a female gerbil and then when you find that she is pregnant put her back with her litter-mate, she may be ok with her, until, the birth now she has pups to care for and now she has a threat, she needs to protect her pups, and then she will fight to the death with this female and win! she has the sake of her pups to think of and cannot lose this battle or her pups will be killed by her. if this doesnt happen then this female will get the chance to kill the pups. the only female ever to put with mum to help raise the pups should only ever be her daughter, she is stronger and has more power over her and her daughter would be stupid to challenge her mother and this is the best option.
8 . seperate the pups from mum at 6 weeks as week 5 they are still getting used to everything and at 4 weeks they are still occaisionally drinking from mum, even though they are on solids.
9 . think carefully about where to get gerbils to breed. in england petsathome is a good store to get breeding pairs from and for any animal and of course breeders in the area, in the U.S. pet shops are not a good place to buy breeding animals and you should get them from breeders. also you need to know that males from the same litters dont breed with the females, the babies will be deformed and die. also when breeding try not to sell to pet shops as you dont know who they will go to , and they could even go to homes where the owner bought them just to feed their carniverious animals ( like snakes) so sell them directly to the person.
10 . the gestation period for gerbils is 21-28 days from conception, however, if she stayed with the male and is pregnant straight away (breedback)and the female is still weaning her current pups she will delay birth for about another 10 days 34-43 days until birth.female gerbils go into oestrus every 4-6 days and go into 12 hours the mating ritual can take up to 2 hours, they will thump to say "im ready" the male will chase the female and then she will stick her tail up and he will mount for about a second,then check themselves out to see if he ejaculated the reason it takes 2 hours is because they do this alot and each time is repeated until he ejaculates. when they finish they will be tired and will go to sleep together.
11 . you must have 3 cages 2 for the babies (girl one and boy one) and a TANK for the mum and dad who are still breeding but when you stop them put mum with the remaining daughters and dad with the remaining sons (considering you sold and saved some)and then you have an empty tank for the next set of breeding gerbils =]
12 . ill say it again never take out the male, its actually true that the female is most likely to harm the pups, if she feels threatened by him being there, so take him out immediatley and in the hope ofsaving any of the surviving pups, also as he would have been there with pup that meens they could havebred again and she could be pregnant, if there are pups surviving this could be a small problem, she now needs to raise these pups alone, and now she is pregnant again, the problem is raising the pups on her own, but unfortunatley you cant put a daughter with her now (if this isnt her 1st litter) as she needs time to realise that the daughter is in fact her daughter, and she could end up killing her daughter to protect her pups thats why its best to put the daughter in a few days before birth, all you can do now is hope evrything goes well with the raising and if you really need to , you may have to risk putting the daughter in , as the daughter could also try and kill the pups as she may not know its her mother and her younger siblings, this may not be a problem, this is the absolute worst thing (her rejecting the male eating her pups then trying to raise her current surviving pups while being pregnant, wow, that was a mouth full try sayin that 10 times fast)
13 . dont worry much though gerbils make great parents and can be trusted. i am a breeder, i havent been through these problems as such but they can happen, i did my research and learned ABSOLOUTLEY everything i could, about gerbil breeding before i did and while i did. my fave website is www.gerbilbreeding.com and this is a fantastic website to help you so look on this website before you breed them, it was a massive help to me and follow the pictures as yours grow older.
14 . breed the healthiest gerbils only, make sure that you breed unusual and "prettier" colours as agouti, pied and black are harder to place homes , so breed colours like dark-eyed honey, siamese, burmese, himalayan, yellow, smoke (not so much though), colourpoints and other very unusual colours or it may be hard to place homes for.
15 . if you are a good breeder and want to be highly respected then you need to look up and breed good temperment, colour and gerbils that are healthy, you need to accept the fact that not all your gerbils will be sold, this does not meen fling it in the the nearest pet shop this meens you must look after it, after all it was your choice to create its life and therefore it diserves the love, care and respect it deserves, so you must give it a home in your care or continue to keep looking for a home for it, if you cant sell it and it turns out there is an odd number left you should try and get the person who bought the others in the litter to buy (or have) this one too, so that its not lonely in your care as they can die early of depression.
16 . gerbils should live from 2-4 years of age and can live up to 6 in very rare occasions, if it doesnt it may be because it was ill, it was lonely or felt it was just its time, also you may not have fed it the correct amount of food or the correct food
17 . as usual you want your babies to be healthy and for your momma gerbil to be healthy too , so feed it lots of protien , give it scrambled eggs (no herbs added just eggs scrambled and only a small amount, as it is quite fatty), feed it dried dog food and good gerbil food, you can also give various fruit, but not all so look it up before you put it in the cage, i feed mine strawberries and apple core quite often,when i buy them.
18 . make sure the tank theyre in is completely  baby proof , no wheels, no 2nd,3rd,4th levels no heavy tubes no houses nothing that could distract mum, when the pups are about 2 1/2 -3 weeks then you can start to put these back in but remember to take them back out before the next litter arrives, pups have died as a result of being lost, crushed by houses and heavy tubes or forgotten by mum in all the ornaments in the tank so take them out. i put the 2nd layer back in (its removable) at about 3 weeks and the ornaments at 3 weeks too.
19. when you see the female is pregnant or you saw her mating and about 20 days later, anyway clean out the tank just before she gives birth as you cannot change the environment in which she lives in for at least 2 weeks after the pups are born (i usually clean them out in the late 2 weeks) as any change in scenery can alarm or scare her as it is unusual and as she puts her home back to how she likes it, she rejects her pups for this time and the nest can go cold and cause their death
20 . finally i am a breeder ive been doing this for a while and have had success in breeding and selling my no.1 breeding pair is IVORY AND BUMPER. they breed alot and have had many pups, and have only lost 1 baby from them out of many litters.i know what i am doing so listen to what i have said and dont ignore what have said an go for info that people are not 100% sure for!!

Answer 2

1 . these are gerbils not just rodents theyre unique, they have different qualitiesand are not like hamsters when it comes to breeding!!!
2 . dont take the male out and it isnt as simple as putting them together for a night  and she is pregnant , they actually need a bond and can take a few weeks even months before they even mate.
3 . mate females in their prime 5-15 months if any later the females may only give birth to 1 pup, she wont produce enough milk, the baby can get stuck in the birth canal as it is too big from getting all the nutrients from mum and can cost lots to go to the vets to get the baby outta there so that she doesnt die, unfortunatley, no matter what this 1 baby will die, even with a young mother that has 1 she wont produce enough milk ,,and males from 12 weeks onwards
4 . never take the male out of the tank like a week before she gives birth!! if you are going to do this properly you have to do at least 2 litters as the mother should never be alone with the pups, and when you decide to seperate the pair leave a female daughter or 2 to help raise the next litter and put sons with dad. if you cant do 2 litters dont bother breeding its not just for fun , you NEED to be extra carful and have them have 2 litters!
5 . gerbil pairs can have from 10-12 litters a year and in each litter there can be from 3-8 babies and from the exception of a few deaths a mother can have from 30-72 babies each year, so you need to find homes for them.
6 .  you will not make money from breeding them , you will be lucky to break out even. only breed gerbils for the love of gerbils or a hobby , but you need to make sure you make time for them, its a tricky job.
7 . its not ok to breed a female gerbil and then when you find that she is pregnant put her back with her litter-mate, she may be ok with her, until, the birth now she has pups to care for and now she has a threat, she needs to protect her pups, and then she will fight to the death with this female and win! she has the sake of her pups to think of and cannot lose this battle or her pups will be killed by her. if this doesnt happen then this female will get the chance to kill the pups. the only female ever to put with mum to help raise the pups should only ever be her daughter, she is stronger and has more power over her and her daughter would be stupid to challenge her mother and this is the best option.
8 . seperate the pups from mum at 6 weeks as week 5 they are still getting used to everything and at 4 weeks they are still occaisionally drinking from mum, even though they are on solids.
9 . think carefully about where to get gerbils to breed. in england petsathome is a good store to get breeding pairs from and for any animal and of course breeders in the area, in the U.S. pet shops are not a good place to buy breeding animals and you should get them from breeders. also you need to know that males from the same litters dont breed with the females, the babies will be deformed and die. also when breeding try not to sell to pet shops as you dont know who they will go to , and they could even go to homes where the owner bought them just to feed their carniverious animals ( like snakes) so sell them directly to the person.
10 . the gestation period for gerbils is 21-28 days from conception, however, if she stayed with the male and is pregnant straight away (breedback)and the female is still weaning her current pups she will delay birth for about another 10 days 34-43 days until birth.female gerbils go into oestrus every 4-6 days and go into 12 hours the mating ritual can take up to 2 hours, they will thump to say "im ready" the male will chase the female and then she will stick her tail up and he will mount for about a second,then check themselves out to see if he ejaculated the reason it takes 2 hours is because they do this alot and each time is repeated until he ejaculates. when they finish they will be tired and will go to sleep together.
11 . you must have 3 cages 2 for the babies (girl one and boy one) and a TANK for the mum and dad who are still breeding but when you stop them put mum with the remaining daughters and dad with the remaining sons (considering you sold and saved some)and then you have an empty tank for the next set of breeding gerbils =]
12 . ill say it again never take out the male, its actually true that the female is most likely to harm the pups, if she feels threatened by him being there, so take him out immediatley and in the hope ofsaving any of the surviving pups, also as he would have been there with pup that meens they could havebred again and she could be pregnant, if there are pups surviving this could be a small problem, she now needs to raise these pups alone, and now she is pregnant again, the problem is raising the pups on her own, but unfortunatley you cant put a daughter with her now (if this isnt her 1st litter) as she needs time to realise that the daughter is in fact her daughter, and she could end up killing her daughter to protect her pups thats why its best to put the daughter in a few days before birth, all you can do now is hope evrything goes well with the raising and if you really need to , you may have to risk putting the daughter in , as the daughter could also try and kill the pups as she may not know its her mother and her younger siblings, this may not be a problem, this is the absolute worst thing (her rejecting the male eating her pups then trying to raise her current surviving pups while being pregnant, wow, that was a mouth full try sayin that 10 times fast)
13 . dont worry much though gerbils make great parents and can be trusted. i am a breeder, i havent been through these problems as such but they can happen, i did my research and learned ABSOLOUTLEY everything i could, about gerbil breeding before i did and while i did. my fave website is www.gerbilbreeding.com and this is a fantastic website to help you so look on this website before you breed them, it was a massive help to me and follow the pictures as yours grow older.
14 . breed the healthiest gerbils only, make sure that you breed unusual and "prettier" colours as agouti, pied and black are harder to place homes , so breed colours like dark-eyed honey, siamese, burmese, himalayan, yellow, smoke (not so much though), colourpoints and other very unusual colours or it may be hard to place homes for.
15 . if you are a good breeder and want to be highly respected then you need to look up and breed good temperment, colour and gerbils that are healthy, you need to accept the fact that not all your gerbils will be sold, this does not meen fling it in the the nearest pet shop this meens you must look after it, after all it was your choice to create its life and therefore it diserves the love, care and respect it deserves, so you must give it a home in your care or continue to keep looking for a home for it, if you cant sell it and it turns out there is an odd number left you should try and get the person who bought the others in the litter to buy (or have) this one too, so that its not lonely in your care as they can die early of depression.
16 . gerbils should live from 2-4 years of age and can live up to 6 in very rare occasions, if it doesnt it may be because it was ill, it was lonely or felt it was just its time, also you may not have fed it the correct amount of food or the correct food
17 . as usual you want your babies to be healthy and for your momma gerbil to be healthy too , so feed it lots of protien , give it scrambled eggs (no herbs added just eggs scrambled and only a small amount, as it is quite fatty), feed it dried dog food and good gerbil food, you can also give various fruit, but not all so look it up before you put it in the cage, i feed mine strawberries and apple core quite often,when i buy them.
18 . make sure the tank theyre in is completely  baby proof , no wheels, no 2nd,3rd,4th levels no heavy tubes no houses nothing that could distract mum, when the pups are about 2 1/2 -3 weeks then you can start to put these back in but remember to take them back out before the next litter arrives, pups have died as a result of being lost, crushed by houses and heavy tubes or forgotten by mum in all the ornaments in the tank so take them out. i put the 2nd layer back in (its removable) at about 3 weeks and the ornaments at 3 weeks too.
19. when you see the female is pregnant or you saw her mating and about 20 days later, anyway clean out the tank just before she gives birth as you cannot change the environment in which she lives in for at least 2 weeks after the pups are born (i usually clean them out in the late 2 weeks) as any change in scenery can alarm or scare her as it is unusual and as she puts her home back to how she likes it, she rejects her pups for this time and the nest can go cold and cause their death
20 . finally i am a breeder ive been doing this for a while and have had success in breeding and selling my no.1 breeding pair is IVORY AND BUMPER. they breed alot and have had many pups, and have only lost 1 baby from them out of many litters.i know what i am doing so listen to what i have said and dont ignore what have said an go for info that people are not 100% sure for!!