Welcome to my gerbil health page. I have listed here my experience of illnesses that my own gerbils have had and I have discussed with my vets. The National Gerbil Society Diseases and Ailments page is one of the best pages for information about your gerbils health.
I am not a Vet and this information is only for guidance and identifying the problem. If you experience any of these problems or others take your pet to a Vet. A good vet will charge very little to see a gerbil (in our case about £5 for a consultation and £8 if there is a prescription). Charges can vary so ring around and ask what they charge. If you are really hard up the PDSA will treat the pets of people on benefits for free.
The best advice that I can give about keeping your animals healthy is to handle each of them every day and to watch them carefully. For example gerbils stop chewing cardboard before there is any physical signs of problems with their teeth. Loss of weight in gerbils should always be taken seriously.
This is one reason why owning a lot of animals is a bad idea - it is difficult to check that you have seen each of them every day and problems can go unnoticed for several days.
Sore Noses.
There are a number of theories as to why gerbils get sore noses but in my experience it appears to be caused by an allergy to sawdust/wood shavings that gets infected. The only way that we have managed to stop this happening in gerbils that are prone to it was to stop using shavings for them and move to Russel Rabbit Bedding.
Once a gerbil starts to get a sore nose it rarely seems to heal up on its own. My vet prescribes Panalog Ointment which is an antibiotic and steroid cream (containing triamcinolone acetonide, Neomycin, thiostrepton and nystatin) which works quite well. The only problem is that it becomes a battle of wills between owner and gerbil to rub it into the nose. The best bet seems to be to "Scruff" the gerbil (ie grab it firmly by the skin at the back of the neck) and get someone else to rub in the ointment or dab it on with your spare hand. If in doubt get your Vet to show you how to hold your gerbil firmly without hurting it.
Missing Teeth.
Gerbils can sometimes loose teeth. If this is due to an injury then the teeth will grow back. However we had some of our older gerbils loose teeth that just fell out again each time they grew back.
There are a number of possible causes - lack of calcium, lack of vitamin C (see California Chins for details of theories on malocclusion in chinchillas), a genetic weakness, infection and even lack of sunlight.
If you do not get a chance to look at your gerbils teeth the first sign of this can be that the animal looses weight due to not being able to gnaw their food - they will stop chewing cardboard quite a while before this so if your pet is not destroying cardboard boxes with it's normal enthusiasm have a look at its teeth.
If your gerbil looses one or more teeth it is essential that any remaining teeth are trimmed by the vet every 2-3 weeks. In theory you should be able to learn to do this yourself with a pair of blunt clippers but I never managed it. Never attempt to trim a gerbil's teeth yourself until you have been taught how to by the vet and have suitable trimmers.
Gerbils with missing front teeth usually have good back teeth so you need to grind up their food so that it is small enough for them to eat but not dust. A mortar and pestle is invaluable for doing this.
We also buy porridge oats, shelled sunflower seed and other nuts which we smash up for gerbils with teeth problems. Soft fruit such as banana is very popular.
We had one gerbil Biscuit who survived for the whole last year of her life with one front tooth. We just took her down the vets every 3 weeks and had it trimmed and fed her crushed food. She was quite bright and had worked out not to try to gum her food but to shove it in the back of her mouth and chew with her back teeth.
Update : I have heard it said that Gerri Gerbil food is very low in calcium. All I can say for sure was that our problems started shortly after we changed over to this food. In the absence of an evidence that it didn't cause the problem (and I am aware that I do not have firm evidence that it did) I would recommended that it should only be fed to Gerbils or Jirds if it is mixed with a gerbil food.
Scent Gland Tumours.
Male gerbils have a bald patch of dry skin in the middle of their tummy. This should normally be flat and dry although you can feel the scent gland as a small flat lump. If the scent gland becomes raised and red then this may be a scent gland tumour (there is a picture at the NGS diseases and ailments page).
These tumours can be removed successfully by an experienced vet. We have had 8 male gerbils operated on. 5 survived the operation and went on to live for anything up to 18 months afterwards. Two were put down during the operation because the cancer turned out to be more extensive, one was the second attempt on a tumour that came back and the other one had an additional external tumour that caused the problems.
Check the cost with your vet in advance. We currently pay about £25 - £30 for a "small animal procedure" but some vets will charge more.
External Tumours.
Several of our animals have developed little benign tumours on their noses or ears. These are only a problem if the animal repeated scratches at them and causes them to bleed. They can be removed by vets but the wounds will bleed profusely and it is quite difficult to stop the animal from scratching them. A strong, healthy gerbil should be able to stand this operation but I would recommend against it unless there is a lot of bleeding from scratching. One of the animals that we have after during a scent gland operation also had one of these removed and I believe that the blood loss from that was the main cause of death. We did have one successfully removed from the ear of one gerbil but he had to have his back foot wrapped in sticky plaster to stop him scratching it. The only time I have ever been really bitten by a gerbil was while trying to cut the plaster from his foot.
Other Tumours.
Like people, gerbils can get cancer. Our gerbils have had a range of different problems when they have got older. There is obviously no treatment for these in gerbils and you have to make a decision about your animals quality of life at some point. We did have one female gerbil who had a lump on her spleen that meant that she ended up almost as wide as she was long. It didn't seem to bother her at all and she merrily outlived all of her sisters before it became a problem. She was probably the UKs first gerbil to be examined with an ultrasound machine!
Liver Failure.
This can be characterised by the gerbil loosing a lot of weight and drinking lots of water. As with tumours there is no treatment except to look after your pet all the time that they are behaving normally and are not suffering.
Middle Ear Problems.
If your gerbil starts to tip over to one side starting with their head this can be a sign of a middle ear infection. This can be treated by your vet with antibiotics (usually a baytril injection).
This can also be a sign of brain tumours or a stroke but this is a lot less common and your vet will be able to tell you what is the problems.
Flu and Respiratory Infections.
If your gerbil appears to be having problems with breathing, particularly if you can hear clicking or squeaking sounds, take him straight down the vet. A respiratory infection can be treated with antibiotics (again usually a baytril injection). It may be a sign of a more serious problem such as lung tumours in older animals but this is less likely than an infection.
Gerbils can also catch flu. This is very nasty indeed and we had an outbreak last winter. If your pet looks obviously ill and is wet around the mouth then get him straight down the vet. The treatment is daily baytril injects to prevent secondary infections setting in and to keep your pet as warm and hydrated as possible. If it is winter get a heater to run in the room over night. You may need to move the water bottle so that the animal can get to it easily or even hand feed water with a pipette. Isolate any other animals that you have in separate tanks but don't remove the animals cage mate as this will be upsetting and he will already have been exposed to the flu by the time it shows. We lost one gerbil, but the others all survived although I was reduced to giving injections to Biscuit myself over the weekend and my husband sat up all night feeding her water. She recovered and lived to a ripe old age.
Strokes.
Elderly gerbils can get strokes. The animal will loose use of part of it's body and fall over or have problems moving. They have the most amazing ability to get over strokes so make sure that your pet can reach food and water and keep him warm. Again you should seek advice from a vet as strokes and middle ear problems sometimes have similar symptoms.
Birth Defects
Gerbils are amazingly resilient to inbreeding but there has been rather a lot of it done particularly for the new fancy varieties. This and other factors inevitably result in some birth defects. If you must breed then try to make sure that your pair are as unrelated as possible. Problems can also be caused by Breed-back which is when the gerbils breed the minute that the female has given birth resulting in another litter developing why she is feeding the previous one. This is very difficult to prevent if you want to leave the pair together but is quite bad for the females health. Consider getting your male neutered after a couple of litters.
A number of defects can occur. We had one male with a foot that was permanently flexed - a form of club foot I guess. It never gave him any problems and he learnt to manage fine with it like that. A female in the same litter had a pigeon chest and still managed to outlive all of her sisters.
If the baby is managing ok then there isn't any reason to have it put down. Often people will happily take on an animal with a minor problem as they feel that no-one else will so sometimes they are easier to get homes for!!
Euthanasia.
The only suitable form of Euthanasia for any animal is to be put down by a qualified Vet. If your pet is obviously terminally ill and suffering it is very difficult to administer pain killers to such a small animal and if the disease is terminal then you have to ask what the benefit is to prolonging the pain. In my experience most Vets are very reluctant to put an animal to sleep if there is any chance of saving them and them going on to have a good quality of life and so if your Vet recommends this action then it is probably the best thing to do.