Once in their home, your gerbils will need to eat something! The gerbil is a granivorous rodent and a little omnivorous too. This means that it will eat seeds but also fruits, vegetables and even insects. 

Basic information

The feeding should contain at least 18% protein and less then 5% fat. To obtain that, veterinarians (and I) advise to use rodent food pellets. Many brand exist with more or less the good proportions. In petshop, you may find some brand that has 12 or 16% protein. This is good but there is better yet. The best one is laboratory food pellet for rats or rodents. You may find this in stores specialized in animal food. I had very good results with that, especially with mothers. The pellets should consist 80% or even 100% of the whole meal.

 

 

Then, 10% to 15% may consist of seed mix of any kind. You may observe that your gerbil will eat all the sunflower seeds leaving all the others. In this case, you can take out all of them and keep them to help the taming process. This is a reason why you shouldn’t only feed seed mix to your gerbils.

 

Seeds mix

 

The last % can be: Fruits, vegetables, cereal or milk products and insects. Those must be used in very small quantities to avoid digestion problems.

 

Special needs for gerbil moms

Generaly, moms don't need special type of food but the level of protein must be followed so that she can produce the milk needed by the babies. 18 to 21% of protein is needed.

 

Home made mixes

If you want to make seed mixes yourself you can but you must follow some indications. They will need a minimum of 16% protein and a maximum of 4 to 5% fat. There are some recipes on the net, but as the Rat chow is a complete food source and that it suit my need, I didn't search further on that topic.

 

Quantities

There must be food prensent in the habitat at all time. 

 

 

Fruits and vegetables 

You must be carfull the first time you give those items to your gerbils. Give only small amouth the first time. If they eat to much at the same meal, they can suffer from diharea wich is often deadly to small rodents. 

Remove the seeds from the fruits as they can be toxic. Remove the fruits or vegetable 1 hour after you gave them. Here is a small list of what you can give to your gerbils.

 

Cereal products

Avoid all pastry and everything too sweet or containing chocolate. Chocolat may be deadly to gerbils and to animals in general. Here is a list of good thing you can give to your gerbils.

 

Milk products

Some gerbils may appreciate cheese.Give only small quatities.

 

Vitamins and petshop treats

If you feed your gerbils with good complet food, you won't need to add any vitamins. In laboratorys, I never saw a technicien give vitamins to the lab animals. 

Petshop treats are there for us. Pets don't need them. But you can use it to help with the taming process. 

 

Other

Cooked eggs, cat food pellets, crickets, meal worm, hay (sold in petshops) and alfalfa.  

 

Coprophagia

This is a normal behaviour. The gerbil will eat its faeces to absorb the last nutriment left in the first digestion just like rabbits. They will get extra vitamin B and other nutrients.

©All right reserved, copyright TheGerbils.com

Webmaster: Joelle Clermont