How do you clean adult gerbils that smell and look grubby?

Answer 1

My gerbils love a "dust" or sometimes it is referred to as a "sand" bath which keeps their coat in lovely condition by removing grease and grub from it. Gerbils should always have a deep area for digging in (like an aquarium filled with hay / dust free sawdust /some people use peat etc) which helps to keep their fur nicely maintained.

For a dust bath, use chinchilla bathing sand in a container, they will dig in it and kick it all over the place and roll around in it. I make sure that mine always have access to a dust bath, if you have a cage like a rotastak or something similar with high walls (as opposed to bars) then putting a layer of sand into the bottom of it of about 1 inch in depth gives them good constant access and stops them being able to kick it straight out of the cage like they would through bars.

If you have a barred cage, place a large sweet tin / chinchilla dust bath / large dish filled with chinchilla bathing sand in it. Your gerbs will love it and after a few days it should improve his / her coat dramatically!

They're supposed to clean themselves, DO NOT GIVE THEM A BATH. Take them to the vet, they're probably sick if they're not cleaning themselves.

"Sand-bath

When you don't have sand as bedding in your gerbil cage, you still have to give your gerbils the possibility to take regularly a sand bath. Mongolian gerbils really love to take a sand bath ones a while. This way they keep their fur clean and fat-free, what is necessary to have a fur that isolates well. Besides, it is also amusing to see how the gerbils roll in the sand during their bath. You can find more about this behaviour at the Behaviour page.

As a sand bath you can use for example a dish, tray, and even a fish bowl. You can also screen off a corner of the cage, which you fill with sand.

You can leave the sand bath permanently in the cage, but you can also place the sand bath at a particular part of the day in their cage. When you use a permanently sand bath it is bet to place it on a raised platform or on brick, etc. This is best, because this way your gerbil won't foul the sand bath with bedding material. It is also best to use a sand bath with a high rim, so that the gerbils cannot throw out the sand when they dig in your permanent sand bath. Besides sand bathing your gerbil can also use their sand bath as a toilet. My own Mongolian gerbils do this too. That's why you have to renew the sand regularly. A screened off corner and a fish bowl with a curled rim do prevent that the sand will be kicked out and won't be mixed with the bedding material. When you choose for a non-permanent sand bath, you will have to led them bath each day for a while, and the sand can be recycled after sifting the sand, and if it was kept dry. After 3 times of recycling the sand, you will have to renew it.

Bird-sand and/or chinchilla-sand is most suitable for using in a sand bath, but you can also use sand that will be used in sandboxes, from sand dunes.

Bird-sand, which normally is used as bedding in birdcages, contains little pieces of shells and aniseeds. The aniseeds will mostly be filtered from the sand and eaten by your gerbils. Sometimes they will also eat from the little pieces of shells to provide themselves with some extra calcium. Sometimes people say that bird sand is too coarse for gerbil and can damage the fur and eyes of your gerbils. This is NOT true! Gerbils don't have any problems with bird-sand, unlike for example chinchillas, which have such fine and thin hairs that the pieces of shells can damage their fur. That is why they have made special sand for chinchillas: chinchilla-sand. But as told before, it is NOT harmful for Mongolian gerbils.

Chinchilla-sand is made from grind clay, and is available in different texture, from fine to robust. For gerbils is chinchilla-sand also very suitable. This sand has only two disadvantages: it will rise in clouds and make a lot of dust, and it is relatively expensive. A good solution to these problems is to mix chinchilla-sand with bird-sand.

Sand for sandboxes, building houses, and from sand dunes are somewhat coarser, which it makes great to use it is a screened off corner or half your gerbil cage. Besides to use for a sand bath, gerbils can use this sand also to dig burrows in. A disadvantage of sand for building houses and from dunes is that you will be not sure if it is clean or polluted. It can contain toxic matter or can be infected with diseases brought in by rodents living in the wild. So be sure it is clean before using this kind of sand! Sand for sandboxes is normally clean, because normally little children have to play in it safely. To be really sure that you purchase clean sandbox sand, you will have to purchase only this sand when it is in a closed plastic bag. You can of course recycle this sand also after sifting it, and again after 3 times recycling, you'll have to renew it."