Bedding

To keep your fat tailed gerbils clean you should provide the cage with a nice layer of litter. Meanwhile there are lots of different litters available and you should really try out what works best for you. Our cage is covered with a 2-4 inch thick layer of litter because the fat tailed gerbils just love to dig and rearrange their cage. Additionaly you can provide them with some kind of nesting material or just simple torn up toilette paper. On the picture you can see one of the favorite hiding spots of our fat tailed gerbils. It was bought as a "toy bridge" but what do they know about bridges!!! Anyway it is always fun to watch them build, dig and rearrange everything.

Breeding

If you were looking for informations regarding the breeding of fat tailed gerbils you will have found out, that they differ immensely. Some say that the fat tailed gerbils are very picky, others claim just to put the male and the female fat tailed gerbil together. We bought our pair two months ago, when they were not quite sexually mature. Meanwhile they are over 60 days old and they mated already. This is kind of strange to watch since you really don´t know wether they are fighting or mating!! The male fat tailed gerbil likes to sniff the females underside which she generally resists with loud squeeking, they then "dance" on their hind legs until the female gives in. If the mating was successful the litter will be born about 19-21 days later with 3-6 pups.

Vitamins and Minerals

On this picture you can see clearly the "fat" tail of our fat tailed gerbil. The fat tailed gerbils originally live in areas with little water and food, so they can chemically change food and store it in their tails. Our fat tailed gerbils didn´t drink a lot when we first got them. Since we added a saltstone to their cage, the water intake increased quite a bit. We also added a mineralstone, which they also like to lick. When our male fat tailed gerbil got ill our vet gave us vitamins because she said it is essential for a balanced diet. We feed our fat tailed gerbils fruits, vegetables and meet and I´m sure they get their balanced diet with the food we give them, plus we always had problems giving them the vitamins!

Toys

Meanwhile there are lots of toys available for your fat tailed gerbils. Obviously we couldn´t make up our mind and we bought almost every toy there is. The most common one is the wheel, which our fat tailed gerbils love and run in the whole night. We bought as well little hiding tubes, which they also like very much and sometimes even sleep in.
On the picture you see my daughter holding our male fat tailed gerbil in a running ball. Since they need a lot of running exercise we sometimes let them run all through the house in that ball. This one can also be converted into a running wheel.
The fat tailed gerbils love every kind of hiding spots, tubes they run through and ladders they can climb. No matter how small your cage is, make sure you include some kind of toy to occupy your little pet.

Breeding

Breeding
The fat tailed gerbils are sexually mature with 60 days. The gestation period is about 19-21 days and the fat tailed gerbil produces an average litter of 4-6 pups. If you have already read different sites about fat tailed gerbils you will have noticed that they differ very much when it comes to breeding. Some say it is very easy and they will reproduce year round, other sites claim that it is very hard to reproduce fat tailed gerbils in captivity. We have a male and a female fat tailed gerbil at home. We had to seperate them for a short period of time because our female fat tailed gerbil became very aggressive after mating. We had to look for a bigger cage and since we reintroduced them in a bigger terrain they get along fine. They even use the same nest together.

Diurnal or nocturnal

So, are these funny little fat tailed gerbils diurnal or nocturnal? Ours are definitely nocturnal, although I heard from a friend, that hers is awake during the midmorning as well. Our two fat tailed gerbils get up at dusk and they are very active throughout the night. They love their wheel and I am wondering how many miles they run in a night... My daughter likes to take our fat tailed gerbils out of their cage during the day and they don't seem to mind very much. They are just very sleepy and the gerbils might fall asleep in my daughters hand.

Cage

Cage

This is our cage. As you can see it is really big and the cage for the fat tailed gerbils doesn't have to be that big. We startet out with a little 60 litre tank which should be big enough. The fat tailed gerbils need a little house where it is dark and they can sleep. They need as well a little basin with sand to clean their fur. The fat tailed gerbil loves to take sandbaths and it's a funny sight to watch them. It is always good to give the fat tailed gerbils something to play with. We put a little wheel in the cage which occupies them all night. Meanwhile we have two wheels because they couldn't agree which way to run when they were both in the wheel. Our little gerbil always lost and made several summersaults - although it looked really funny, we decided to give them another wheel!