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I went to buy new fleece today and discovered the Walmart I chose didn't have a fabric department, so instead of leaving and seeking out a fabric store I picked up one of those cheapo "no-sew" fleece blanket kits from the craft aisle. Turns out the size of fleece included in those is the absolute perfect size for lining the bottom of a chinchilla mansion cage. As an added bonus, since two pieces of fleece come in each package every time I buy new fleece my chinchilla cages will be color-coordinated! I very nearly bought the kit with a wolf blanket but then decided against it. Maybe next time.
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Dec 22, 2013 01:39
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nunsexmonkrock posted:Gerbil stuff. - Take out the sunflower seeds from their food and use them as treats. It works great to tame them! - A dog food scoop is great for scooping out the old bedding when cleaning the tank. - Gerbils love chewing on toilet paper tubes. - Throw in some shredded, non-scented, hand tissues in the tank after cleaning. Along with hay, the gerbils gather up the tissues to make their "beds." - For fresh food, I feed my gerbils pieces of either carrot or apple once a week. Apple slices should be skinless. - Gerbils can use chinchilla sand baths, so used them once a month to keep their coats clean. - If you have trouble handing them, use a glass jar to move them around. Just let them crawl into the jar on their own, don't force them into it! - If you decide to keep them, get a 20 gallon long tank aquarium; it's plenty of room for two gerbils.
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Dec 23, 2013 03:33
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-95% of the Sunflower seeds are in the Kaytee stuff they came with and I am only mixing in very small amounts of it with the good foods just to use it up. They might get 1 or 2 a day for a week. -I do have a tiny brush and pan designed for small cages and a cat litter scoop, that is only used for cage cleanings. -Yep they already have 2 toilet paper tubes that I cut so they can't get stuck. -The tissue is a great idea they will get some in a couple day when I next clean. -They got some fresh food today and it was a little bit of carrot and green pepper. They loved it, I'll take note apples should be skinless. -Already "borrowed" some of my works store use chinchilla dust bath  -So far they are already crawling onto my hand when I put it in the cage, soon they may let me remove them, hopefully. -I will move them up from what they are in now to a 10 gallon that I can borrow from work until I can get a craigslist 20 gallon, since that seems to be the most recommended. Then I think they will be all set. I already don't want to give them up  Edit: I just cleaned their cage and they are all like  and going crazy. I put tissues in it as recommended and they love it. After New years I will have a 10 gallon and then I will be upgrading to a 20 shortly after. I love these little girls!
nunsexmonkrock fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Dec 26, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 00:38
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Now that the holiday's are over and there aren't so many animals boarding, my work is going to give me something like this (Their last 10 gallon broke.)to use until I can get my hands on a 20 gallon aquarium for them. They will be getting twice the amount of space until then. From what you guys have been telling me it's still not ideal, but it's better that freezing in a box outside. Right now, about half their cage is completely filled with orchard grass, tissue, etc... and they are having fun digging around, I don't mind bits of stuff flying around all over the place for the moment. I gave them a dust bath today and it was so adorable! Is it okay to do it more than once a month? I want to do it every day because it's so cute!I also bought a vitamin supplement for them. Is this okay to use too? I did forget to buy an apple at the grocery store today so they will have to wait a few days for it (-15 degrees F with -45 windchill tomorrow), and I am not leaving the house for anything tomorrow. I'll take pictures when they are in their new larger cage!
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Jan 6, 2014 06:00
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nunsexmonkrock posted:I gave them a dust bath today and it was so adorable! Sure, they really love dust baths. One pile of dust is good for a few times, just run the dust through a kitchen sieve to get the poop and bedding out of there afterwards. They get bored of bathing after a bit and start digging and kicking your expensive dust all over the room so it's probably a good idea to get their bathing cup out at that point to minimize expenses  nunsexmonkrock posted:I also bought a vitamin supplement for them. Is this okay to use too? Vitamin supplements are pretty optional. If the gerbs diet is otherwise okay, extra vitamins and such aren't necessary.
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Jan 6, 2014 06:53
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Awesome, yes that is what they have been doing, just kicking the dust around when they finish. I will always make sure the bathing house thing is clean and poop/pee free. But it's good to know I can just sift out the poop rather than toss out all of the dust. They are getting really nutritional food but if it's no big deal, I'll just keep giving them the vitamin supplement just to make sure. Edit: I figured it out. I have a 29 gallon aquarium that isn't being used for anything. I'll put hem in that once I clean it out and get rid of all of the fish poop, algae, etc... and stuff. nunsexmonkrock fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Jan 6, 2014 |
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Jan 6, 2014 14:04
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Here is their new set up in my 29 gallon aquarium. I just need to figure out how to attach the water bottle and get a new wheel, because the last wheel attached to the side of the cage. I'm thinking with 29 gallons I can get them another friend once it it completely set up?
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Jan 7, 2014 23:23
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nunsexmonkrock posted:Here is their new set up in my 29 gallon aquarium. I just need to figure out how to attach the water bottle and get a new wheel, because the last wheel attached to the side of the cage. I'm thinking with 29 gallons I can get them another friend once it it completely set up? The most popular option is to attach a plastic locking water bottle to the inside of the glass. These have a small lock which you attach to the wall with a piece of adhesive foamboard. They're quick and easy to use, but if your gerbils are anything like mine, it's only a matter of time before they decide that chewing a hole through the plastic on the bottle is faster than trying to drink from the spout. You can get these at pretty much any pet store. What I ultimately did, and what I think works a lot better, is used a glass-rated epoxy resin to glue a ceramic magnet to the inside of the aquarium (while the gerbils were out, it's non-toxic once set, but has some strong fumes until then), and glued another ceramic magnet to the back of a large glass water bottle designed for traditional cages. It's easy to detach and the gerbils can't chew through it. The only real downside to this method is that most resins set so strongly that you will probably never be able to remove the magnets from the glass if you ever want to reposition them. You can get the bottle at any pet store and the parts at any hardware store, usually in the fixtures/hardware section.
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Jan 7, 2014 23:45
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So, I've never been able to get a video of the babies wrestling because they always stop as soon as you get close enough to take a video of it. I do have this picture though! They are starting to become mini-chinchillas! Of course, they are all ebonies so it is hard to tell them apart, but we manage, because we have runt, squeaker, and non runt/squeaker. Squeaker is called that because it squeaks every time you pick it up, every time mom steps on it, every time she grooms it, etc.
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Jan 7, 2014 23:52
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MacGyvers_Mullet posted:The most popular option is to attach a plastic locking water bottle to the inside of the glass. These have a small lock which you attach to the wall with a piece of adhesive foamboard. They're quick and easy to use, but if your gerbils are anything like mine, it's only a matter of time before they decide that chewing a hole through the plastic on the bottle is faster than trying to drink from the spout. You can get these at pretty much any pet store. Thanks for the advice! I really didn't want any more pets and wanted to use my aquarium for fish, but... Oh well, Surprise, I have Gerbils now. I'll look into what you told me thank you.
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Jan 8, 2014 00:36
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nunsexmonkrock posted:Here is their new set up in my 29 gallon aquarium. I just need to figure out how to attach the water bottle and get a new wheel, because the last wheel attached to the side of the cage. I'm thinking with 29 gallons I can get them another friend once it it completely set up? Don't worry too much about the wheel though, it's not that high on the short list of gerb entertainment. They'll just eat it. Getting them more wood and cardboard is always good as long as they're clean and safe. Prime purpose of a small wooden hut for gerbs is that they can eat it. They will eat it. You just need to check that there are no nasty glues, nails or rivets in there. Big hunks of branches are nice too as long as they're clean. I've only gotten my branches and such from pet shops but ones straight from nature would work too I guess. You'd probably need to peel the bark off, wash it and shove it in oven for a while first. I'd skip another gerb unless one of those gets sick or something and dies prematurely. Two will get along fine and all. And it's never assured that the new one will get along with both the old ones so it can cause you extra hassle for not much gain.
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Jan 8, 2014 06:43
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Khisanth Magus posted:So, I've never been able to get a video of the babies wrestling because they always stop as soon as you get close enough to take a video of it.  . Does their mom get upset if you handle them?
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Jan 8, 2014 07:25
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Neddy Seagoon posted:Look at those adorable little fuzzballs She used to, but is pretty much over it now. She just makes sure that she grooms them when they go back into the cage because they smell too much like human. Which results in squeaker making a huge ruckus! We just gave them a PVC tunnel tonight as their first obsticle/thing to play in(we had kept their cage pretty clear of objects as they grew so that they wouldn't accidentally get hurt), and my wife took a video of them and mom running around on it. http://s1321.photobucket.com/user/takakageri/media/chinchilla/ebonies/DSCN1791_zpsa71c3a54.mp4.html
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Jan 8, 2014 07:30
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I love them trying to three stooges their way through it. 
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Jan 8, 2014 08:51
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Khisanth Magus posted:She used to, but is pretty much over it now. She just makes sure that she grooms them when they go back into the cage because they smell too much like human. Which results in squeaker making a huge ruckus! Those are unfairly cute.
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Jan 8, 2014 14:38
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Pig pic for this thread, just cuz.
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Jan 9, 2014 03:31
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Falafel is on the left, Nanuk on the right. Managed to catch a rare moment between "yayyy, let's run around in circles really fast!" and "yayyy, let's poop everywhere!"
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Jan 9, 2014 04:38
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Fewd posted:Don't worry too much about the wheel though, it's not that high on the short list of gerb entertainment. They'll just eat it. Getting them more wood and cardboard is always good as long as they're clean and safe. Prime purpose of a small wooden hut for gerbs is that they can eat it. They will eat it. You just need to check that there are no nasty glues, nails or rivets in there. Big hunks of branches are nice too as long as they're clean. I've only gotten my branches and such from pet shops but ones straight from nature would work too I guess. You'd probably need to peel the bark off, wash it and shove it in oven for a while first. Awesome thanks for the great info. Right now they have this house (gerbil sized). I'm not fond of the dyes on it, but just to get them started, it was cheap, in 3 days my jobs at cost discount starts and I will get them something better. (Edit: Eek! 2 reviews on dead guinea pigs with this thing. I'm getting rid of it now and giving them an empty tissue box for the moment.) They also have this toy. Same problem as above with the dyes but I will get better in a couple days. They also get like one of these or these every other day because they seem to love them. They also have a giant paper towel tube, that will be getting replaced tomorrow. As far as branches go, what about those things made for birds to stand on? Would that work to just toss into the aquarium? I wouldn't feel comfortable giving them anything from outside of a pet shop. Okay, I will skip another gerbil for now. Artemis and Athena are cute enough as it is. Edit 2: By the way they seem to despise the sunflower seeds as treats, but they grab pumpkin seeds out of my hand when I give them to them as a treat. The unsalted stuff from the mixes. nunsexmonkrock fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 08:51
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bettsta posted:Falafel is on the left, Nanuk on the right. Managed to catch a rare moment between "yayyy, let's run around in circles really fast!" and "yayyy, let's poop everywhere!" 
Captain Invictus fucked around with this message at 10:27 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 10:25
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nunsexmonkrock posted:Edit 2: By the way they seem to despise the sunflower seeds as treats  They might be broken, better watch your backe: nunsexmonkrock posted:As far as branches go, what about those things made for birds to stand on? Would that work to just toss into the aquarium? I wouldn't feel comfortable giving them anything from outside of a pet shop. I'm not sure what you mean but if you GIS "terrarium branch", it gives a pretty good overall idea of what I've used before. Just need to check at pet store its suitable. Various branches also make it easy to access platforms and such if you decice to make some for food etc. Fewd fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Jan 9, 2014 |
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Jan 9, 2014 11:13
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We have a Syrian hamster and she's, obviously, the cutest hamster in the world. She doesn't do a whole lot of running in her wheel, though. It's a proper wheel (closed off, not too small) but she's just completely uninterested in it. She does run around the cage and nibbles on the bars and so forth, but I was wondering if you guys have any tips to get her to run in the wheel. Or would a hamster ball be a good alternative for her to get some exercise?
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Jan 9, 2014 15:52
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Sagacity posted:We have a Syrian hamster and she's, obviously, the cutest hamster in the world. She doesn't do a whole lot of running in her wheel, though. It's a proper wheel (closed off, not too small) but she's just completely uninterested in it. If she doesn't like her wheel it's because she expects to go somewhere when she moves. Get her a Ratmobile and prepare for bruised ankles.
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Jan 9, 2014 20:42
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Jedit posted:Get her a Ratmobile and prepare for bruised ankles. 
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Jan 9, 2014 21:33
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Sagacity posted:Do you have a link for that? A Google search gives me all sorts of weird unrelated crap I think he just means a hamster ball. Princess Hamerella vastly prefers hers to her wheel.
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Jan 9, 2014 22:58
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tentawesome posted:I think he just means a hamster ball. Princess Hamerella vastly prefers hers to her wheel. Yeah, sorry, my family have kept hamsters since my sister was eight (she's now 25) and the exercise ball has always been called the Ratmobile. They love 'em, even if several of mine have worked out how to open them from the inside.
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Jan 10, 2014 00:06
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tentawesome posted:I think he just means a hamster ball. Princess Hamerella vastly prefers hers to her wheel. Yeah, my hamster is the same way. He ignores the crap out of his wheel but willingly walks into his ball and runs* around for a good while. *thunks into walls and gets himself stuck repeatedly
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Jan 10, 2014 04:54
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Okay, that sounds like something Pippi would enjoy as well then (our walls not so much)
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Jan 10, 2014 10:00
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Man, after one and a half years of peace for some reason my gerbils now completely hate each other (or at least one hates the other) and now i'm stuck with a make-shift gerbil habitat aka the bath tub. It doesn't make any sense to me, they were sleeping together when I took them out to play, and then they started to play fight that turned into real fighting which I seperated without any injuries to anyone. Hoping that it would be a one time occurence I put them back in the aquarium and went to bed because I was sleepy as hell. I made sure they were fine with each other before I went to bed and they were once again sleeping with each other so I thought it would be fine. I ended up waking up around 6am to check on them and as soon as I did they started fighting again for no reason this time drawing blood from multiple parties, so here I am, a gerbil in the tub and scrambling to find a new tank/divider. Gerbils are dumb.
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Jan 14, 2014 23:03
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Zetsubou posted:Man, after one and a half years of peace for some reason my gerbils now completely hate each other. The same can happen with hamsters, so it's not just gerbils that are dumb like that. Best friend five minutes ago? Hamster Hitler right now. 
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Jan 15, 2014 00:24
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Okay, split cage method in action now. Sadly the space for both of them is pretty tiny because of this but this ain't my fault gerbs, shoulda just gotten along. Edit: also the thing I used for splitting the cage in half is meant for fish, but that's all I have so hope it stays in place!
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Jan 15, 2014 05:37
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I have noticed a sad lack of degus in here. I'm here to fix that. And no one on my FB is properly appreciating my lil babbys. \Oh I'm just gonna sleep right here on the floor. Who needs beds.  I rescued them from a family who listed them on Kijiji. They had bought them for a Christmas present for their daughter roughly four years ago, but she no longer cared about them. They came in a big ugly heavy glass aquarium with only one wheel that was too small for them and 1.5 log bendy things. So I bought them this: (note for scale, they are sorta stacked on top of each other in the corner)  Now they have figured out what levels are, and can use a wooden ladder from the bottom level of the cage down to the floor. Also they are little jerks who keep moving all cage decorations around. I bought them a wicker ball with a bell inside and it's constantly being jingled and moved all over the place. I'm pretty sure they are 1000 times more happy with me and all the real hay that isn't in a cube to eat. Also, look at my dwarf hamster. But don't touch, she is very bitey. 
Clone Farmer fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Jan 17, 2014 |
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Jan 17, 2014 10:03
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Dawww, that dorfie. I miss my dwarf hamsters. I'm probably going to get a Chinese Dwarf or two once the four Syrians I raised pass away, as sad as it'll be to see them go. They all developed individual personalities and quirks, so I'm gonna miss the hell out of them when they're gone. 
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Jan 17, 2014 10:56
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Captain Invictus posted:Dawww, that dorfie. All hamsters will do this if you don't treat them as cute ickle balls of fuzz. My current hamster, Twitch, is a very shrewd rodent who swears like a navvy. The one before that spent several months acting like a cat when she was young and was mildly claustrophobic.
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Jan 17, 2014 11:05
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Captain Invictus posted:Dawww, that dorfie. She is a cute little grump. No one listens to me when I tell them not to poke fingers near her because she will draw blood, because "Oh she's so tiny she can't hurt me!". If I'm too loud during the day or if I have the audacity to open the balcony door beside her she will wake up and squint at me and try to attack my hand if I attempt to appease her with a peanut. Her little angry squinty face is the reason why I wait until she wakes up at night to clean up her house. Which is a big rubbermaid container. 
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Jan 17, 2014 11:17
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It never ceases to amaze me how much anger and blatant disregard for the continuity of life on Earth can be contained in that little package.
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Jan 17, 2014 12:10
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I'm going to ask you guys because I've gotten some good advice from here before. So at the moment i've got two female gerbils ages being a year and a half in my aquarium with the split cage method going on because they have recently started fighting. I have had them both for the same amount of time and from the same store and beyond the fact that I often put them in neutral zones together that may carry new smells, I don't really know why they have started fighting. It started when I took them out in my room to have a run around, while I will admit me and my backpack had a 6 hour day outside visiting many different places (including a pet store), that to me is one of the only reasons I can think of why they started fighting, that one of my gerbils explored my backpack confusing the other gerbil with new unfamiliar scents. After about 6 minutes outside, they started play fighting, which then turned into real fighting. I seperated then with no injuries and put them back in their tank hoping it would just be a one off thing. They ended up going to bed together so things seemed to be working out, but them I woke up at 6am to two fighting gerbils again (which I think there is only one aggressor) and ended up seperating them for good because blood was drawn. So long story short should I eventually try to reintroduce them at some point in the split tank method or do you guys think that keeping them seperated might be better? My plan so far is to buy a bigger tank, clean it out really well, put them in it using the split tank method and then try to reintroduce them in about 3 weeks. I am also going to keep two of everything in the tank. My local pet store employee told me to put vinegar or their butts when trying to reintroduce them but I don't know if I am going to do that / if that even works.
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Jan 17, 2014 13:03
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Zetsubou posted:My local pet store employee told me to put vinegar or their butts when trying to reintroduce them but I don't know if I am going to do that / if that even works. Unfortunately I got nothing on your problem, but I was just wondering about this one. Did he say why exactly you should put vinegar on their butts? To cover scent gland? That's on the belly, not on the pooper. And I was under the impression that the best way to reintroduce them to each other is to get them used to each others scents by switching them from one side of the split cage to another, so what does covering scent accomplish? How have you split your aquarium by the way? Some sort of wire mesh contraption?
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Jan 17, 2014 13:19
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Fewd posted:Unfortunately I got nothing on your problem, but I was just wondering about this one. Did he say why exactly you should put vinegar on their butts? To cover scent gland? That's on the belly, not on the pooper. And I was under the impression that the best way to reintroduce them to each other is to get them used to each others scents by switching them from one side of the split cage to another, so what does covering scent accomplish? I was thinking exactly what you were thinking so I was also pretty confused when she said that. She said something along the lines that it helps reset past aggessions by mixing up their smell, confusing the gerbil. Also at the moment I am using a divider ment for fish, it's made out of a hard but flimsy plastic that they can't chew through because it is too straight for them to grip at. It also has some small air holes in it. I'm thinking for my new tank I would buy some plexiglass, fit it to size and drill some holes in it too for scent passage. Edit: Here is a small update. Today I decided to see if my gerbs were going to start cooperating, so I put both of them in my bathtub. With gloves ready, I was posed to stop any agressive behaviour from happening however, i'm not exactly sure what I saw. Both gerbils were facing each other with their faces literally touching, almost as if they were face cuddling. Sometimes one would put their head under the others and the other would seemingly try to groom her but for some reason she wouldn't go through with it really. So basically they just touched faces for under a minute and then the aggressive gerbil somewhat lunged at the other so I caught her mid air and decided I didn't want to see where that was going. I have no clue whether this is an approvement or not. I just looked it up on google and apparently this person has had the exact same reaction. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120102001420AAC0ECR Zetsubou fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Jan 18, 2014 |
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Jan 17, 2014 14:25
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If my phone weren't such poo poo, I'd take a video. I got the gerbils a wheel, Athena took to it right away but Artemis doesn't quite use it right. Artemis stands outside of the wheel, faces it parallel and just constantly spins it with her front paws. I don't really know what to say except for this  and this 
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Feb 6, 2014 03:14
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They're hiding in the grass! So cute! Although I did buy a cover too small for my aquarium, a new hopefully sized correctly will come in the mail tomorrow. Edit: I got my screen cover today, so I gave them more hay and stuff without having to worry about them jumping out. They seem to love it! 
nunsexmonkrock fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Feb 13, 2014 |
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Feb 12, 2014 04:45
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