Housing

A 23gal plastic tub w/ topper

Now for housing.


Like said on the bedding page, there are many conflicting views on housing as well as bedding. Some say "Go with a cage!" Others say that a tank is best, with 5 gallons per gerbil. And some say that tanks are great, with at least 10 gal per gerbil. Again, the latter is right.

A CritterTrail. Don't use!

It's a good idea to give a group of gerbils the biggest home you can get, being at least 10gal per gerbil, except in some cases. I’ll address those here.
1.    If you have a group of three or more females. You don’t want to give them a cause to declan, so you’ll want to do about 10gal for the first three, and 5gal for each next gerbil. It’s not as critical for males, but still a good idea.

 

30gal fish tank

2.    If you have a single gerbil for whatever reason, maybe she’s old, and her friends have passed away, or maybe she had declan troubles. Whatever the case is, you should give a single gerbil at least a 15gal tank to make sure she has plenty of burrowing space.


When choosing housing, you have four basic choices. Cage, Gerbilarium (tank with topper), aquarium, or clear plastic storage tub (learn how to turn these in to gerbil homes here).

Type	Pros	Cons
Hamster cage or HabitTrail	HabitTrails are fun to look at.	No digging space can cause declans, expensive, can cause bar chewing issues, bars make it hard to see your gerbils, gerbils can ingest plastic and die.
Glass aquarium	Clear so you can see your gerbils well, offers lots of burrowing space, looks good.	Heavy, sometimes expensive.
Gerbilarium	Fun combination of tank and cage, good for interacting with your gerbils, topper provides lots climbing opportunities.	The cage top should not replace digging space, can cause bar chewing problems.
Clear plastic tub	Lots of digging room, very inexpensive, easy to carry around.	Can be cloudy, easily scratched.

Gerbilarium

Hopefully this chart will help you in your design of the kind of home to get your gerbils. Just remember, it needs to be at least 12in deep to provide good burrowing room.