Best Cage for Gerbils??

I may possibly be getting some baby gerbils, and am looking into cages and tanks. I'm really not sure what will be best!?

A glass tank or one of the wire cages, or something that is mostly plastic!? It was easier when I got my hamster all that time ago!!

Help!!

A really big old fish tank is the best with lots of sawdust for them to tunnel in . Also put in the cardboard inners of toilet rolls for them to rip up . They don't need cleaned out as much as a hamster as they are not smelly . If you can't get a big old fish tank you can get gerbil cages in Pets at home . They are wire cage on the top and tank type on the bottom .
We had ours in an old toy box with wire netting on the top.

I really like this one, its a combination of the two.

http://www.petsathome.com/find/categ...oduct-is-14991

ETA I just saw Fernsmum mention it in the previous post.

Yes that one is good but pricey . If you can get a big secondhand fish tank and some wire netting to put on top it will give them more space and won't be so pricey

I'm going to look into getting a big old fish tank! I think I know someone that may have one =]

Thanks!

You can buy sections of small mesh good quality wire netting in any garden centre and shape it for the top .
Half fill the tank with sawdust and they will be happy tunnelling .

storage box!!!

very cheap - big and easy to clean out!!!

just google ideas on how to make it!

Just remember they chew like crazy and are real escape artists.My dad made mine when I was a kid. a massive wooden one with a glass front so you could see the tunnels.

We went through all of this back in February when we got our girls Ariel and Nimueh.

We bought the Gerbilarium from Pets at Home and they lived in it for only 2 weeks before we could easily tell it wasnt big enough for their needs. A loss of £50 straight off.

Gerbils are desert animals and they like to burrow and build tunnels, as well as to move their 'furniture' round themselves. We found the sawdust (substrate) would come out of the wire topper of the pets at home one really easily and they hardly had room to dig let alone build a warren of tunnels.

Ours now live in this, it was a vivarium previously and is now their palace it is 3ftx2ftx18in



They actually now have almost triple the amount of substrate in there compared to what you can see in the pic and they love it.

Here are my girls







Some of the Gerbil forums do give excellant instructions on how to make a good home out of a storage box, or if you can get an old fish tank - how to make a secure top for it. The key thing to remember is they chew Everything and plastic and wood is no obsticle......plastic can also be fatal.

Hope this helps