Today is the Day!
After what could have been anything from days to weeks, your two gerbils are ready to meet for the first time without the divide between them.
You have worked hard up to this point – making your own split tank – choosing the best gerbil to match up with your single gerbil – swapping them from side to side, day after day – and finally planning ahead for today (explained in Split Tank Introductions – Planning the Big Day) so that everything is a perfect as it could be.
We all want this to work out right first time.
Are you nervous?
Step 2 – The Day of The Divide:
The day you are going to remove the divide is very important and you want this all to go very well – BUT – you also want a contingency plan in place incase it doesn’t quite go to plan.
Gerbils will after all – be gerbils…
Ideally for your first ever Split Tank Introduction – it seems as though you need 3 hands – possibly 4:
- One at the ready to take out the divide and put it somewhere safe
- The second in a thick glove – to safely part any gerbil shenanigans
- A third with perhaps a pot or other solid gerbil-sized container in it
- And maybe a fourth to help take out one of the gerbils if necessary and put it somewhere safe
Only got two hands?
Well, by setting up for everything in advance, you can do it with just the two – but what is ‘everything’?
1 – Always plan do the Introduction on the floor in a large space. You will need things around you to help with the Introduction any way, but there is the chance you could drop one of the gerbils if they fight – better they aren’t at a height for this.
2 – Do one final side swap. Ideally you will have swapped them in the morning as usual, but when you have decided to do the divide – swap their sides one last time and take out their water bottles and food bowls. Leave them to simmer for around half an hour after this (which is perfect times-wise for you to gather all your extra bits you need – see below).
3 – Always plan for the worst – make sure you have a ready made gerbil carrier open and waiting right beside the Split Tank. There is no way you can safely put the divide back in while they are fighting or you are trying to stop them from fighting. Best take one gerbil out and safely seal in the carrier. Only THEN go back and put in the divide. Safety first at all times.
4 – Plan your actions for the next half hour or so. Once you take out the divide – it wouldn’t be a good idea to leave your gerbils together unattended for any great time – ideally not at all. Not only will you be missing all the signs you need to see to tell whether it is going well or not – you won’t be there to stop them fighting if it happens.
5 – Ideally you would gather up the following things before you take out the divide so you have everything to hand without anything to worry about:
A – The secure carrier as mentioned above
B – A thick glove or two – as well as a gerbil sized pot or tub
C – Small pieces of their 3 favourite loose treats
D – An already made up shallow fresh sand bath
E – A couple of fresh toilet roll innards
F – A handful of fresh hay
I – A drink and a snack for you (don’t want to get up if you don’t have to)
J – Your phone or device (for much later on in the process)
Anything else may be rather overdoing it – but there is nothing worse than needing something and it is too far away…
6 – Before you remove the divide – put on your thick glove and/or hold your solid pot for safety – yours as well as theirs. Never use your hands during a gerbil fight – it never ends well.
Gerbils during a stressful Introduction or a fight are just in a panic. They aren’t thinking straight and so can’t be guaranteed not to bite you or to leap and jump all over the place – think of you if you think a giant spider has fallen in your hair.
The last thing you need right now is for one to get injured – or worse – lost.
So, everything in place?
Split tank on the floor surrounded by your goodies – and you prepared to sit it out for the first half hour without distraction?
Then go for it – take out the divide (but read below first of course…)
Step 3 – Removing the Divide:
Move apart the bedding from around the divide and then hold it at the top with one hand while holding your gerbil pot in the other at the ready.
Gerbils hardly ever fight straight away so you have time to safely but swiftly removed the divide and place it up against the Split Tank itself on the other side to you.
There may be bits of bedding coming out all over the floor at this point – just accept that it may be messy and focus on the job at hand (i.e. don’t start trying to tidy bits of fluff up when you should be concentrating).
Once you are past the initial panic stage a few minutes in – try to relax and just watch them. If they are just going on about their own things without interacting at all – keep watching.
They need to be assessing and reacting calmly to each other to decide who is going to be the dominant one. If they ignore each other on purpose – they haven’t yet started to settle.
They may stand on each others heads or sniff each other’s bottoms – one may mount the other one – and there may even be a few squeaks from the younger or smaller one – all of this is normal. What is also normal at first, is one running away or standing in the corner.
What you don’t really want to see (but aren’t deal breakers just yet) are when one of the gerbils ‘sides up’ to the other gerbil and the other one does the same. One gerbil ‘siding up’ to the other (bringing his bum and tail sideways in towards the other gerbil and possibly raising his back up in the air) is fine as this is the one who wants to be the Boss and they are seeing if the other one will retaliate (hopefully the other gerbil walks away at this point).
There needs to be a certain amount of posturing here as one of them has to be the Boss so the one sided ones you let go – don’t interfere here.
However, the two sided ones need a little intervening – just like the ‘being cornered’ and the ‘both chasing’ moments. This is where the sand bath, toilet rolls and treats come in.
I generally start with one of the treats – drop a pinch of the favourites into one spot and see who comes to eat them.
Gerbils eating in a Split is great news as it means they are relaxed enough to do so. The one who wants to be the Boss may well eat anyway (well, that is what the Boss would do), so if they both eat together this is looking good.
As the treats disappear, perhaps consider putting in the sand bath.
Gerbils love a sand bath and these gerbils are probably desperate for one having been in the Split for so long. There may well be a bit of scent marking on the dust bath itself, but as it is wide and shallow, neither gerbil can control it so to speak, and they should hop in and out taking turns.
Great for distracting them from worrying about things.
If all seems OK after another 10-15 minutes consider sprinkling in some more fresh treats – like sunflower hearts or meal worms in one place so they have to come together to eat them.
Hopefully up to now they have been watching and interacting with each other but nothing so bad as repeated double-siding ups, relentless chasing and cornering or worst case – a ball fight (usually Step 3 in the siding up process: Step 1 – One gerbil sides up; Step 2 – The other gerbil sides up; Step 3 – Ball fight).
If at any point there have been repeated actions like those above where you have had to keep splitting up and intervening in – then perhaps you have removed the divide too soon.
Even if there are good signs while they are in the Split Tank – it doesn’t always translate to being ready when they are actually face to face.
Not a problem really – just take one of the gerbils out and put safely in the carrier, reset the divide back in the tank, and start over until your next day off.
The slower you take it – the less likely anyone is to get injured and the better the bond will be for the gerbils long term.
Step 4 – Do they seem fine together?
So, your gerbils have been together in the tank now for over half an hour without the divide in place and without any fighting or constant bickering.
Great.
Perhaps now is a good time to add back in their water bottles if you haven’t already (one at each end) and then add in the handful of hay to give them something to do – i.e. – make a new nest together to sleep in.
Sleeping together is the thing you want the most – once they have slept together in the same tank you are almost certainly there with the bonding.
Giving them the hay will help give them the opportunity to make a joint nest (as they have probably ploughed through their old one in the past hour) as well as trigger them back into the ‘gerbils must get on’ mentality. It will also help wear them out a little bit – all the better for sleeping?
After they have been playing with the hay for a while, throw in a few more treats and a toilet roll or two and see what happens.
Keep your eye on them, but by now they are settling down so you don’t have watch them like a hawk. You aren’t in the clear just yet – but you can relax a bit more – you are 80% of the way there.
If at any point they start bickering or look a bit wary of each other’s company, distract them temporarily. Maybe move something around in the tank – take out the sand bath – add more treats or a new toilet roll. Just enough that the moment has passed. Just like stopping an argument before it goes any further.
If it gets worse – call of the split and start over.
If it isn’t terrible but you aren’t sure whether you could leave them together without you being close at hand – err on the side of caution and replace the divide for another day.
Only when you have seen them sleeping together with as little scuffling as possible – and ideally they have both eaten heartily while close to the other gerbil – can you assume all will be well for the night.
Caution always prevails with me – so I have them in the same room as me for as long as possible (which is why it is great that Split Tanks are small and easy to move around) – I keep it with me overnight too if I want to be super sure all is well.
Once they have lasted the first night together – they can be classed as (almost) bonded and you can breathe easily.
As long as you don’t do anything stupid (see below) then all should be well. The speed with which you want your gerbils together and out of the Split Tank can affect how they bond – basically the faster you take things the more likely you are to hit a problem – possibly (but not always) one to upset the new clan.
Take into account the following tips before moving on to the next steps already:
Leave them in this same small tank – for as long as you can afterwards. They both feel safe in this small space as they both own it and are close enough together to build up their new bond.
Swapping them straight out into a different larger tank with no-ones scent in it could reverse everything you have spent a week or more doing.
Don’t clean out the bedding – just over a few days keep adding more and more bedding and nest material to the existing set-up and then take out just random handfuls of any over-soiled bedding from this growing material.
Currently, it is the bedding smelling of both of them which is bonding them together – so the longer you can maintain that scent for – the better. Ideally keep some of this well-used bedding right up until you move them back into a normal set-up so that this ‘new’ home smells of them too.
Add new things very slowly – don’t rush into piling in all the toys and things again straight away. Anything new in the tank will need to be ‘owned’ and so could cause a whole lot of scent marking and posturing to break out.
Anything you add also needs to be either brand new or have been washed with something so strong so that your original gerbil doesn’t get the upper hand with everything smelling of him.
Avoid things with a dead end – don’t put anything in the tank that a gerbil can become defensive over or could get trapped in – at least for the first week anyway. Allowing one gerbil to have control over any space is not advised in the early days. It will be fine once they are really good friends in a few days.
Don’t take them out to play – leave them in the tank for at least the first few days – ideally the first week entirely together. Again, the scent is what is helping to bond them – so moving them into a new space, adding loads of new smells or keeping them apart for any length of time are all things that could undermine your hard work and their delicate new bond.
Be patient.
It is better to hang off with all the exciting stuff for at least the first week than to have your Introduction fail.
One week versus the whole of their lives together?
It’s a no-brainer really.