Handling

Handling

Newly-arrived gerbils like nothing better than to be left alone in their new home for the first few days. Let them settle in. Then you can start chatting to them. You won't get any answers back, but your gerbils will be appreciative and it will help them get used to you. Only when your voice is familiar should you try picking them up.

Hold your hand as a closed fist in the gerbilarium and see if a gerbil approaches. Then gently open your hand and let your gerbil scamper onto it or slide your hand underneath him. Finally, hold your gerbil in cupped hands.

Gerbils are Olympic-standard wrigglers and very good at jumping. So hold them over a table or a sofa or close to the floor or they could fall and hurt themselves.

Never pick a gerbil up by their tail: it is painful and distressing for them. The skin can often slip off leaving a raw, exposed stump that can go rotten.

Gerbil Gymnastics

Gerbils love toys. And they get some much-needed exercise while all that playing is going on. So tubes, tunnels and playthings of all shapes and sizes are very welcome. Exercise wheels are fine too, but only solid models. Open ones can trap tails.