Anyone seen this before???

[MonoOmoi]

I've had gerbils for quite awhile, and I've always kept them in corn cob bedding, but I've never seen this happen before...

I've noticed lately that when one of my females is scratching in the corner, she'll keep a piece of bedding in her mouth. While she digs, she keeps her mouth open against the side of the aquarium, which is how I noticed this in the first place (she'd never done that before, either). She'll drop the chunk every few seconds, and then stop digging to pick it back up. But otherwise, she's been completely normal...

Anybody have suggestions about this??

[gerbilgurluk04]

my eldest female max does that all the time..i thought it was really weird at first, but now im just used to it. she started doing to when she makes her nest... she has a little wooden box she sleeps in, but as i know she loves making the bed herself, i dont put the bedding inside, i leave it jus on the floor of the cage for her to carry in and chew up herself. she would do this and then when she was finished she would grab a little bit of sawdust, or sometimes bedding material and put it in her mouth and proceed to dig in the corner. then she would drp it then pick it up again etc etc etc. what i rekon it is, is that they think they are digging out of the cage and are getting bits off of the wall, when they go to put it in there mouth they drop the other bit..even thought they dont actualy have anything to put in there mouth coz the cage is glass...thats what it looks like to me anyway..:kiss2:

[gerbilgurluk04]

what i do to try and resulve it (it works for a couple of hours but then she gets bored again) is put new and interesting things in the cage with her and her cage mate, so they have things to do. her cage mate is only 7 weeks old, she is one of the babies from maxies second litter, she used to live in with the father of the babies, but i had to seperate them coz i didnt want any more babies!! give it a try and see if it works

[MonoOmoi]

Cool, thanks.
She's currently living with 4 of her pups, and I haven't given them many toys lately, so maybe she's just bored....
:rainbow:

[gerbilgurluk04]

my max did it loads when she had all 5 of her pups in with her...when they were at there most mischivious age... maybe she was trying to escape from them!!:o