Tail Issues

[LadyRachel]

Hi to all other gerbil owners...
Santa brought my eldest daughter gerbils for christmas! We are all enjoying Happy and Duo as they have been named, and they seem to be adjusting to the fact that they now have La Chat Noir (The Black Cat) watching them all the time.
My question is this, yesterday I noticed that it seems like their tails are lossing hair...there are bauld spots on the tails of both of them. The skin is in fine shape, no open sores or anything...I was just wondering is this something I should worry about? Does anyone know what might have caused this? They are in a ten gallon tank, have aspen bedding, and plain white scott toilet tissue for nesting. We just got them a thing from the pet store that is a piece of wood that is dyed green and is curved that they can chew on and/or use as a little house thing...the green thing seems to be made of the same type of wood as the chew sticks that you can buy for them.
If anyone has any ideas on why their tails are losing hair, or what I should do about it, I would be very grateful.

[StarKat]

Your gerbils are just bored. give them a toy or two and dip their tails in bitter apple or hot sauce mixed with water every day and they should stop.

[PyscoFalcon]

It could be a number of things - mites, over grooming, stress from the cat or getting it trapped.

I would rule out mites first with a vet trip and make sure they can't get the tails trapped in anything (I hope you have no wheel) then makesure the cat can't get near them. After 2 weeks of having no cat around you should see an improvement.

[Gerbil Shows UK]

Hi all,

Avery quick way to check for mites is to wrap the gerbil in tissue or toilet roll for a minute or so when handling, then check the tissue for tiny mites.

However it sounds very much like "barbering" to me, which is basically overgrooming the tail through boredom. Give them extra wood toys, shredded paper, and used toilet rolls to gnaw on. Also a solid wheel can elleviate boredom, and vastly reduce stereotypical behaviour,and at the same time maintain the animals health.

I very much doubt it's stress caused through the cat, as a cat is not a gerbils natural predator, so they have no natural fear of cats whatsoever!
In fact gerbils (meriones unguiculatus - which roughly translates as "clawed little warriors") -are well known for challenging animals bigger than themselves. However due to this fact it's best to keep the cat away from the gerbil :)

Well that is unless you have a cat that thinks it's half gerbil like mine

http://www.gerbilsuk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/cat4.jpg

http://www.gerbilsuk.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/cattrial.jpg

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Eddie
www.gerbilshowsuk.org