Why gerbils eat their young

Giving gerbils up for adoption at a shelter is an easy process, most shelters accept gerbils and all you have to do is call make sure they do take them and drop them off. It is also best to give the gerbil babies to the shelter as soon as they are old enough to be separated from their moms. Gerbils have a fairly short lifespan, so most families looking to adopt gerbils will prefer younger ones. In case there are no animal shelters that accept gerbils near you the best option is to give them to pet stores.

One of the benefits of giving the baby gerbils to a friend or a family member is that you get to see them occasionally when you visit. Some of us make the most of every occasion, even an unwanted litter of gerbils could be a chance to make some money to reinvest on the ones you keep. It is also irresponsible to release new species to an unknown environment, sometimes they could just die but sometimes they could take over and kill the entire ecosystem of the area and it happens a lot in various areas around the world.

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The gerbil sleeping habits The sleeping habits of gerbils have always been subject to debate, and that's mostly related…. Gerbil teeth ultimate guide - How many? The parents need time to groom and feed themselves, too. The parents will, instead, make the litter more manageable by killing one or two. This means that the mother can safely feed her remaining babies more easily.

When a mother gerbil has a litter, one of the first things it does is mate again. It can then give birth to another litter around the time that the first litter is weaned.

This means that the mother can continually produce more young, with no time wasted. The gerbil mother can do this two, even three times, or more. This is the optimal way for small creatures in the wild to breed because it produces so many offspring. Small mammals are so easily predated that many young are needed to create the next viable generation. The mother can delay birth for some time, but sometimes not long enough.

If this happens, the mother will have far too many pups to feed. Instead, it will kill off some of the second litter so that the rest of both litters can survive. When the mother gives birth, she builds a nest. It takes the young to this nest and spends the next week or so holed inside. During this time, she will feed her young with milk. Neither young nor mother will venture from the nest for this week. This places a great strain on the mother. But in addition, it must use extra energy to create lots of milk for each pup.

This comes after the pregnancy process, which uses lots of energy too. In the wild, this can place the mother in an untenable situation. This could place her close to starvation. Eating one or two of the pups, especially in a large litter, means that the mother and the rest of the pups can survive.

In a gerbil litter, there is often one baby that is less well developed than the others. But when one baby is born smaller than the rest, it will grow to be smaller, too.

They can take its food and deprive it of access to its mother. This is sad for the owner, but all gerbils and animals are driven by eating and keeping resources for themselves. The runt will likely grow up to be too weak to survive anyway. This might seem sad, but it makes sense for wild animals. If it spends time raising underdeveloped pups, these may never grow into healthy adults.

Pregnancy and taking care of young is stressful enough on your gerbil. Things can get even worse if the mother is ill during this time. If a gerbil is ill, she:. This issue is compounded by creating milk and then by the potential second litter on the way. Stress does strange things to animals, including people. It makes animals behave strangely, in ways that may seem irrational or even wrong. It does the same to gerbils and can make them eat their young. Baby gerbils are made and grown entirely by the mother emptying out her body of its vitamins and minerals and passing them into the pups.

Add a second water bottle if you can incase one stop working or check it all the time. Scatter feed nutritious snacks like sunflower hearts and mealworms all over the tank on top of more than usual amounts of standard gerbil food. Yes, the dad may well get a bit plump on the extras too — but you are doing it for the pups you want to bring into the world.

Normally the runts are able to catch up as they age — but if the mother has had a big litter added to any other issues mentioned here, these runts may miss out — it is just bad luck. The mother is super stressed — this can be due to a number of factors that you may or may not be able to do anything about.

For example, being in a spot where there is constant disturbance. Yes, they were always so attentive before whenever anyone came in the room — but now, the constant movement is something they need to be wary of now that they have a young litter. Similarly, some gerbils get stressed with constantly having shadows falling over their tank — always the case if you and your family are walking between a sunny window and the tank.

This moving shadow can trigger a prey response in the gerbils — so if the weather is sunny at the wrong time — she could think her pups and herself are under constant threat. Well, this one is debatable. Surely she is just protecting them and herself? If you think she did it on purpose — then perhaps you just accept that and stop breeding from her. So, is your gerbil mum evil? No, she very well is not.

She is just an animal taking steps that she thinks are the best for herself and her family. Whether she herself, or her pups are ill, or she thinks they are all in danger of being killed by predators — she is making the best decision she can as to whether to keep feeding her pups with her own body parts or to stop it all now and make herself free to deal with whatever comes her way.