advice on gerbil as pet for young children

site_owner

first off, i know its a pet for "me". kids get the benefit of having a pet, getting used to it, learning some resonsibility etc. but i need to clean it, play with it, make sure its fed and so on.

first off, i had gerbil for many years when i was young, so am sort of familiar, but that was 20+ years ago and we had a very basic setup. 2 gerbils and a simple cage.

kids are 3 and 5, and have a hamster at school, i think they are maybe a bit young for unsupervised handling but should be fine with me there.

looking for some help on planning and deciding. i think gebils are right, they arent too smelly, and are not fully nocturnal, also fairly sociable and not super skittish like mice. any other animals to consider?

if gerbils are a good choice, what kind of setup should i look at. and where do people get gerbils these days, i would always rather adopt animals but is there a gerbil rescue?

thanks!

Cherry Blossom

I wouldn't have gerbils or hamsters for kids younger than 10 really. They are much too wriggley and fragile. A pair of guinea pigs would be suitable for younger kids (around 7 or 8 years old). At 5 and 3 'compassion and regard for another species life is a bit beyond the understanding of kids that age. A tame guinea pig will happily sit on a small lap for pets under supervision if that's what you want. Much easier to handle, slower and a bit more robust.

site_owner

Thanks for the reply. Appreciate the suggestion.

I'm not really looking for a pet that they can just cuddle, altho readings about guinea pigs they aren't that great for it anyway as they seem bad for urinating and dropping when handled, needing diapers?

I don't know have the indoor or outdoor space for them and not in a position to have free roaming pets in the house, outdoors we have 5+ wandering cats and a few birds of prey so guinea pigs would be under a lot of stress even if we had room for a run.

em_cat

site_owner wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. Appreciate the suggestion.

I'm not really looking for a pet that they can just cuddle, altho readings about guinea pigs they aren't that great for it anyway as they seem bad for urinating and dropping when handled, needing diapers?

I don't know have the indoor or outdoor space for them and not in a position to have free roaming pets in the house, outdoors we have 5+ wandering cats and a few birds of prey so guinea pigs would be under a lot of stress even if we had room for a run.

Good thing you researched that, we’ve 2 rescue guinea pigs and they are odd alright, neither like being cuddled but yet love to be combed & brushed, I’ve toilet trained them and now when they need to return to their home for a wee, we don’t keep them in a cage per se, they just squiggle so I know.

But like you don’t really have the indoor space for them to run free plus we’ve a terrier who although is fond of them might have issues if we let them run free. Also they don’t really like open spaces.

Zapperzy

I had a gerbil when I was in my teens, had a few hamsters after him. No way would I recommend them for young kids unless you want a strictly look but no touch pet and you do all the handling. They're way too fast and wriggly for young hands. If you do go ahead and get them I'd recommend a tank set up so they can dig and burrow, buy as big as space will allow. Avoid all those plastic and wire cages, they'll end up chewing holes in plastic or the wire bars. Get 2 or 3 of them too, they're social animals, just make sure they're the same sex.

While I've only ever handled one pet rat going by what I've read they might be more suitable. A lot slower, bigger and sturdier.

site_owner

thanks for all the advice, i'm leaning away from the idea now, at least until the kids are a bit older.

i'm going to look into something like an ant farm for now, to get them used to the responsibility of feeding etc and see how they get on with it.