When I first got my gerbil, I considered getting a hamster, but instead opted for the former because the standard is that most gerbils are diurnal. I definitely wasn't as lucky; if anything, she started out metaturnal. At first she would go to sleep at around midnight and get up again at eight, no problem for me, but then she had babies and changed her sleep schedule. I kept one of her daughters but the two fought constantly during the day/slept at night, and finally I gave her daughter to a friend. After which... she became almost totally nocturnal. She's active from around ten o'clock PM to five o'clock AM, goes to sleep, wakes around ten for another hour's constitutional digging, then sleeps till five again. I tried introducing a diurnal gerbil - one of my friend's, a female - to see if it would change, but again she picked fights and she's just too aggressive to have another female in the tank. I'd put a male in but I've dealt with baby rodentia already, I don't feel it's right when I don't have the time to do so again.
Anyways - to the point - is there any way I can change her sleeping habits a little bit, like how dogs and cats will adapt to human habits? She's too loud at night for my parents, I generally sleep through her antics. I've tried putting her in a communal area where she can watch everyone and get used to our patterns, but she's not at all very friendly so, as expected, she didn't take much interest in the goings-on outside her tank and still rattled away at night.
Any suggestions?
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