SURPRISE gerbil litter

Question

i went im my room to check on them as i do every couple of hours and there were babies in there looks like shes ha about 5 but the male still in there and i cant move him case she eat them wt do i do

Answer 1

I don't know why it is a surprise to have a litter of gerbils if you have a male and female in the cage together.  Rodents breed like....well rodents.  You need to take the male out immediately before he manages to impregnate her again.  

Check out online for some good sources regarding baby gerbil care.  Additionally, I'd start thinking now of good homes for the babies.  Unless you are a responsible breeder and know what you're doing, you should never put an unaltered male and unaltered female of any species together.

Here's some sites:

http://www.geocities.com/heartland/plain...

http://www.hilltopanimalhospital.com/ger...

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

no she wont eat the male if u move him she will eat the babies if u move them i suggest u move the male away from the female let the female take care of the baby gerbils and then when they are old enough let them back together

Answer 3

You can remove the male without her eating the babies, just make sure that you don't put your hand too close to her when you do and make it as quick as possible, but don't startle her by darting your hand in there like lightning. Just do it smoothly like you'd normally do it and she probably won't even notice, well not too much. Hope this helps. Enjoy them while you can, they won't stay small for long.

Answer 4

It's best to take the male out of the cage if you don't want another litter.  They can get pregnant very quickly after giving birth.  Don't disturb the pups and gently take the male out of the cage.  Try to keep the area quiet and avoid bright lights so the mom doesn't get too stressed.  

Answer 5

It is probably too late now to remove the male anyway. They mate numerous times immediately after birth.

It is up to you whether you want to leave the male in or not. But, personally I would leave him in since the dirty deed has probably already been done a second time.

Male gerbils make excellent fathers and he will help the female immensely. Often males make better parents than the females!

Don't disturb them often. Make sure they have plenty of unscented toilet paper or paper towels for nesting material. Check on them once or twice a day and leave their cage in a quiet spot.

You should provide the mother with plenty of fresh food and water so, she can nurse her pups properly. The pups will wean off of their mother around 4 weeks of age but, they benefit from staying with their parents for a further week (5 weeks). If the Mom is pregnant a second time and the first litter seems to be weaned by the time the second litter comes then you can begin the separation. A normal gestation for a gerbil is around 24-25 days but, can be prolonged if she has pups nursing.

When it is time to separate by sexes then all the males will be very happy to share a cage with Dad. Males love to live in large groups and get along perfectly fine.

You have to be a bit more careful with the females though since gerbils live in a matriarchal society in the wild. Females will fight for dominance. They do best in pairs, trios can work if raised since birth, but if you can avoid trios and have pairs then it is for the better.

You should leave one daughter in with Mom (even if she is pregnant for the second time) because the daughter will help look after the newborn pups and you can avoid a third pregnancy.

Mom should be fine with a back to back pregnancy this one time. I've had rescue gerbils come to me with many back to back pregnancies and they were tough and healthy. Though this isn't the ideal breeding practice! You should definitely learn how to properly s*x gerbils so, this sort of incident doesn't happen again.

Good luck with your pups!