Meet the family....

Well, we now have some new gerbils. After the gerbil fiasco a few months back, we knew we'd have to wait until our last gerbil died before being able to have any new ones, and after a day or two of looking really rough, Billy died yesterday morning. So, luckily the pet shop had some in stock - the kids wanted girl gerbils this time (largely because Olivia wanted to call one Millie), and they happened to have 3 - so we reserved them and went today to collect them. When we got there, it happened they had four females, litter-mates, and we had such a tough time deciding which would be the unlucky (or perhaps lucky!) one left behind that... well, you can work it out for yourself, I'll bet.

So, up above, we have Charlie, who is a brownish colour. Below is Mimi, who is a sort of tannish grey, with a slightly darker tail. (I think that Mimi is also in the picture above, but it's hard to tell.)



And then there's Millie (of course) who is a pale gingery colour,



and last but not least, we have Bianca, who is an albino (red eyes and all) - named after the mouse from the Rescuers.

The gerbils that almost came to stay...

Well, here is a photo of Alex and Olivia with Charlie and unnamed grey gerbil, who almost came to live with us today. As you can see, they got as far as the house. A while back, one of our gerbils (Gerry) died, and earlier this week, we lost a second, Ozzie. Which just left Billy, who seemed a bit lonely and wandered around searching for his mates (Ozzie in particular as they were always pretty close). So, we decided, time for new gerbils. The pet shop does a gerbil introduction service, where you bring your old gerbil and they put him in with some new ones in a box for 10 minutes or so to see if they fight. We did, they didn't. Fine, gerbils bought, brought home, installed in gerbilarium and then... Billy went very territorial and violent, fought with the other two including quite a nasty bite on unnamed grey gerbil's tail. Sigh. Back to the pet shop with the new gerbils. Oh well! So now, Billy will have to live on his own until he dies - and then we'll probably get two new ones - Olivia wants female gerbils, so that we can give them girly names (yes, the priorities of a 10YO are somewhat different than those of a grownup).

R.I.P. Gerry the Gerbil

Well, we knew the time would come when one of the gerbils died, and that time was today (or rather, I think it was a day or two ago, as I haven't noticed him so much recently). Not sure what was wrong with him - he's always been a bit mad, liked to chew on the bars of the cage - perhaps it was eating the paint off the cage bars? - but the kids took it quite well. Gerry was nominally Sarah's gerbil in that she chose him and named him, but really, they all belong to all of them so they are all a little sad. They did agree unanimously that they didn't want to get a new one to replace him, so we are now a 2 gerbil household. He wasn't quite two yet, so he was a little young to die, but 2-3 years is fairly common for most rodents, so it's not a huge surprise. Farewell little Gerry; it was fun!

Gerbils..

Sarah took this video of Gerry - he's probably checking out the camera with a view to eating it, knowing him!

Gerbil pile

Haven't had a photo of the gerbils in a while - so here's a cute one - they are sleeping all in a big pile - not even in the corner or anything, just piled up in the middle of the bedding. I feel sorry for Ozzie (the black and white one) as he's the littlest, yet seems to have ended up on the bottom with big tubby Billy on top. Oh well, I suppose if it really bothered him, he'd protest more!

More gerbily fun

The favourite plaything of a gerbil is a cardboard tube - they love to chew them into little pieces - it took them about 10 minutes to totally demolish this tube. And now they are curled up into a ball on top of one another having a big rest, as they are exhausted from manically chewing up the tube. Ah, the life of a gerbil!

Meet Ozzie

Isn't he just the cutest thing?

Gratutitous gerbil pics

Here's Ozzie, eating a bit of broccoli



Here's Jerry and Billy, curled up into a cute ball of sleeping gerbils.

Ozzie eats popcorn

Gerbils & Gingerbread

(though admittedly, not at the same time)



The gerbils seem to spend most of their time either sleeping or digging around in their cage, burying things they unburied yesterday (or vice-versa). But yesterday, they moved one of the cardboard tubes in the bottom of the gerbilarium up against the side of the tank, so you can see inside where they are all snuggled up next to each other having a snooze. This only shows two of them, but they were all three in there. Really cute.




Gingerbread house - I stuck the pieces together with melted sugar, and made the windows (also melted sugar) - it was a kit which came from Ikea. The kids decorated it. Great fun, I have to admit.

More gerbil videos (but that's all for a while!)

The gerbils have landed...

Gerbil Preparation

The only thing missing now is the gerbils... which are on special order from the pet shop. Should be 2-3 weeks. Needless to say, there is excitement. I think it looks pretty cosy, myself - the gerbil sleeping/hiding pod in the top level, the food dish, the running wheel for exercise, the water bottle - and downstairs, plenty of space to dig and some tunnels to hang out in. There is also a chewing/playing in cube, which must have got put in after the photos were taken. And of course, there will be some toilet roll tubes for chewing and playing with, and probably some bedding, but we'll wait until the gerbils get here for that.

And I've hung the pictures that got displaced by moving the bookcase, above the cage. Couldn't have a blank wall in my house!