Cheddar & Chive

Cheddar enjoying a treat

After the amazing experience of Barley and her sisters, we had decided to take a break from gerbils. We had done very well sticking to our resolution until we popped into our local pet shop for some supplies. No trip to the pet store would be complete without a little look at the baby animals, what harm can it do? There was a sign on one of the animal tanks that read ‘Male gerbils, six months old. Please ask a member of staff’, so we did. Their original owner had found them a handful, anyone who knows happy, healthy gerbils will understand what they meant, so they had returned them to the pet shop, which is far better that leaving them in a corner and ignoring them. We were given the gerbils for free, which made them even harder to refuse.

So we brought the latest members of our family home. They were a little overwhelmed at first, not having had any cardboard at the pet shop, they were kept very busy when confronted by a home full of things for them to destroy.

We no longer had our Ferplast Duna cage that we had previously kept our gerbils in, so we had to keep the guys in a travel tank (it was still bigger than what they were in at the pet shop). As luck would have it we had to go to Ipswich a few days after getting the gerbils. We knew that there was a Seapets superstore there and that they stocked the Hagen Zoozone cages, and at a very reasonable price. So we popped in and bought our gerbils their new home. We got home and let Cheddar and Chive out on the landing while we made up their new cage and filled it with all the wooden toys and logs, we had kept from our last family of gerbils, oh yes and lots of cardboard. The guys did not take much encouragement they both jumped in the new cage and started tunnelling and chomping the cardboard. We did not see very much of Cheddar and Chive the next day, so they must of had a good night playing and exploring in their new home.

Chive

They are both wonderful active and inquisitive little guys and have made themselves right at home running around our house and making a mess as they shell sunflowers and pumpkin seeds. Not that we mind, it is wonderful to have the pitter patter of tiny gerbil feet filling our home again.

We have been having a rough couple of months with our gorgeous little gerbils. It started back in December when we noticed that Cheddar was having problems eating, he had also lost some weight. We were not to concerned by his weight loss as Cheddar was always the chunkier of the brothers. But when we noticed he was having real problems eating we took him straight to our vets who had a look at his teeth for him. We found that his top teeth were almost non-existent and his bottom teeth had grown quite long because there was nothing for them to wear against. Our vets are very good with small animals and the vet expertly clipped Cheddars bottom teeth to prevent them becoming a problem for him.

Once home we tried to feed Cheddar up on mushy cereal and baby food, but he was having none of it. Fortunately within a few days of visiting the vets Cheddar was managing to eat some of his gerbil food, he was still struggling with large or particularly hard things, but he was obviously feeling a lot better.

A couple of weeks after Cheddar’s trip to the vets Chive started to look a little down. During his usual out of the cage time, he wasn’t very interested in running around and causing trouble, most unlike Chive. Our little guys are both well over two years old now, but having just nursed Cheddar through his teeth troubles we really weren’t prepared for anything to happen to Chive. Sadly as is often the way with little critters, Chive slowly deteriorated over the next few days until he passed away quietly in my hands.

Our sweet boys in happier times

We are pleased to report that Cheddar is still doing very well. He has been back to the vets and had his bottom teeth clipped again, so this is obviously something that is not going to go away. To compensate for Cheddar’s difficulty eating, we have started breaking all his food up into bite size pieces, which he certainly seems to appreciate. As well, we bought him a bag of mixed chopped nuts, which is a very naughty treat but he is most definitely worth it. For such a little guy Cheddar is unbelievably brave, coping with the loss of his brother and his teeth troubles. He is still heaps of fun to play with, if anything he is more demanding of our time than he was before, but if that’s what he needs to get over the loss of his brother then we are more than happy to be there for him.

Cheeky Cheddar

I’m sorry to say our amazing little gerbil Cheddar passed away peacefully. When I say amazing I really do mean it. Since the end of last year, Cheddar had been having problems with his teeth. His front top teeth had just stopped growing, but his bottom ones had not. This gave us two problems the first was that he needed to have his bottom teeth clipped regularly by our vet and the second was that he could not eat normal gerbil food. We love Cheddar very, very much so we got into a nightly routine of breaking up his gerbil food into small bite sized pieces for him.

Amazingly given his age, the loss of his brother and his inability to chew, an important gerbil activity, Cheddar survived for another ten wonderful months. He still enjoyed coming out every night to run around for at least half an hour. He would climb up the furniture and our legs to come and see us and steal the food we were preparing for him.

Cheddar was around three years of age, which is an incredible age for any gerbil never mind one with no teeth, when he slipped away peacefully one evening. We miss him very much, but are very proud of the care we took of our little guy and the bond we shared with him.