6/5/99 I bought a thirty gallon aquarium in a garage sale today for the 5 males- Oreo�, Spotty, Tangerine, Nimbus, and Pookie�. The tank measures 36 inches x 12 inches x 16 inches. They now have more room to run about and dig.
6/10/99 I gave the boys cornmeal to bathe in but they were more interested in eating it.
I also gave them a Lego house to play with, for a short while.
This is Creamy and his son Little Creamy�. Little Creamy� is a very light yellow fox pied.
Here Creamy is exploring the Lego house.
6/23/99 Cookie had three babies today. Her last litter of two are not doing well they are very small.
7/18/99 Cookies three babies are two nutmegs and a lilac pied.
� 
Cookie has a small baby that is developmentally delayed.He is slightly bigger than his little siblings, born on June 23. He was born on May 24,1999 In a litter of two. This was her thirteenth litter.
His right paw is held up, and is fixed in this position even when walking or digging. His elbow is swollen and he has bald areas on his body in several areas.
His left eye area that is reached with his left paw (when cleaning his face) and under his chin that is reached with his right paw are bald. Between his back legs is also bald. I think these bald areas might be caused by nutritional reasons.(failure to get enough milk) I remember reading about gerbils that had bare rumps, and the hair grew back. I hope his hair grows in, when the moult comes. He would be 8 weeks old tomorrow, but looks like a 3 1/2 - 4 week old gerbil.
His Red fox brother looks like a 5 week old gerbil. This has happened before, but not as drastic.Cookies litter born June 23,1999 are slightly smaller.
7/24/99 Cookie had one baby.
7/27/99 I found a dead baby buried in the litter, therefore Cookie had 2 babies.
7/28/99 Cookie's baby died :o( Perhaps, she is getting too old and is not able to produce enough milk. She is almost 2 years old and this is her 15th litter.
7/29/99 This is a great picture. :o)The Dark eyed honey gerbil is Honey pie's grandson.(Creamy's mother is Honey pie) His name is Basil and he is Creamy's Nephew. Basil lives with two other male gerbils Jasper and Quincy and their owner Kandy Mandy from the Gerbil Mailing List.They came from Kitt in South Dakota. Visit their web page. Here
8/1/99 I had to remove Pookie� from the 30 gallon because Tangerine and Oreo� were chasing him and would not let him leave the cheese house. When I put the cornmeal bath in, Pookie� jumped in only to be chased out and back into the cheese house. Aargh !!! Males are supposed to get along. This is the second time, I've had a gerbil driven away from their group. Last time, Creamy was driven away by Nabisco. Pookie� is in the pup tank with 6 baby gerbils. 2 are almost his size and the others are smaller. I don't know what I am going to do yet. I don't want to set up any more tanks but Pookie� is one of my favorites. :o( At least I got him out before he was injured seriously. I don't think they would have eventually settled their dominance issues without the threat of it escalating. The chasing was pretty intense.
8/2/99 Pookie� has been paired with a nutmeg pied female born April 21,1999. She is Creamy's daughter. She was with Cookie because I switched a few pups when they were about 9 days old. In case, I was going to retire Cookie with a pretty colored female. I wasn't sure if she was a DEH or a Nutmeg pied, so I kept her a little longer. The other pups that were switched, were given to a co-worker. A split cage introduction was not needed, they got along right away. Perhaps, because they were both low ranking, in their hierarchy. At first Pookie� and Peanut were in the pup tank with 5 of Cookie's babies, but then the babies were given back to Cookie because she missed them.
8/7/99 This is Pookie� and Peanut.They can have pied and solid Black, Nutmeg, Lilac and Red fox babies.
Little guy is doing well. All his hair has grown back and he able to run, play and eat. Little guy is my smallest gerbil. He is 1/2 the size of his parents Sunny-D and Cookie. His younger siblings born June 23 are almost his size.
The Nutmegs born June 23 are starting to molt into their nutmeg colors.
8/17/99 For the past three days I saw Sunny-Delight mating with Cookie several times. This means no babies were born this month. Maybe she has entered Menopause.
8/17/99 On the Gerbil mailing list
I wrote - My two males with Cookie have been acting
strange. Sunny-D the father and dominate one has been
chasing his son Sunny-Boy and putting his nose under him
and flipping him over, it also looks like Sunny-D might be
trying to bite him on his scent gland or testicles .
Sometimes, Sunny- boy will run up to his father press up
against him by putting his ear/shoulder under his dads nose and turning from side to side. Other times they press
shoulders together. I hope they aren't getting ready to
battle because I don't have any more spare tanks.
Do Ike and Mike do this also?
___________________________________________________________
Deb Adams Responded - Yep, Mike&Ike are always wrestling,
especially when Cindy is in heat. Sometimes they both stand on their hind legs and box, while squeaking loudly until
Mike flips Ike over. Then Mike will groom Ike.
Once, about a month ago, while Cindy was in heat, Mike and
Ike fought so hard that Ike got a bite on the base of his
tail. We thought that we would have to remove Ike. In fact
we took turns taking out the males and letting them run
around in the ball, while the other boy mated with Cindy.
Well, Cindy would have nothing to do with Ike mating with
her and kept attacking Ike, so we just removed Ike and let
Mike mate with Cindy. Then right before bedtime, we put Ike
back in the tank.
For awhile after this, Cindy decided she disliked Ike and
kept trying to "dominate" him by boxing and pushing and
rolling him over. Now Cindy has decided that it is Mike
that she doesn't like and is always boxing, pushing and
rolling Mike over. The last couple of days, Cindy has tried
keep everyone away from her. Yesterday I noticed Mike&Ike
and the 5 kids sleeping in the nest while Cindy slept in
the open on the opposite side of the tank. Sometimes I
think that Cindy gets pretty tired of living in such a big
family.
��Either Mike or Ike are ALWAYS trying to mount her, even
when she is not in heat. They even mount her when she eats,
drinks, or tries to sleep.
Anyways, to answer your question, yes Mike&Ike go through
fighting stages sometimes (like a month ago) and sometimes
(like 2 months ago) they go through stages where they are
always cuddling and leaning against one another. And
sometimes it is Cindy who tries to fight with everyone.
It sounds like (in your case) that the son is questioning
his father's dominance. Some people might think that is
means trouble and possible irreconcilable differences, but
they two boys may just fight out their dominance issues
with no blood.Visit Mike and Ike's webpage here.
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