marco polo
last thursday night while cleaning the gerbs cage, jamie noticed that
was acting weird. usually he's the most active of our 3 gerbils--he likes to go to this one tube with a domed cap that is horizontal to the cage & dig his little heart out. he scrapes & scrapes with his front paws, stopping once in awhile to scoot the imaginary dirt out with his back legs, & even spins around upside down. whenever we put a cardboard tube in the cage he's the first one to run over & start chewing it up. he's also the most adventurous, thus i named him marco polo. he is the oldest of the gerbs & was near full grown when we got him.
by the time i got home from work friday evening, i was really worried: he was just kind of sitting around with his eyes half closed. he'd go to the water bottle, take a few drinks, & then sit there. i offered him some food from my hand (which he usually gobbles up) & he took it but only nibbled on it for a second & then dropped it, resuming his standing around looking stoned thing. i noticed his breathing was slow & shallow, to the point that when he was sleeping i'd have to stare closely at his sides to make sure he was breathing.
this continued all weekend. then yesterday he started moving around more & his eyes were fully open more often than not. his respirations got faster & deeper. today he was interacting with the other gerbils more & even scraping at the bottom of the cage a little. i am very hopefuly he'll make a full recovery. the house has been too quiet without the scraping of his little feet.
was acting weird. usually he's the most active of our 3 gerbils--he likes to go to this one tube with a domed cap that is horizontal to the cage & dig his little heart out. he scrapes & scrapes with his front paws, stopping once in awhile to scoot the imaginary dirt out with his back legs, & even spins around upside down. whenever we put a cardboard tube in the cage he's the first one to run over & start chewing it up. he's also the most adventurous, thus i named him marco polo. he is the oldest of the gerbs & was near full grown when we got him.
by the time i got home from work friday evening, i was really worried: he was just kind of sitting around with his eyes half closed. he'd go to the water bottle, take a few drinks, & then sit there. i offered him some food from my hand (which he usually gobbles up) & he took it but only nibbled on it for a second & then dropped it, resuming his standing around looking stoned thing. i noticed his breathing was slow & shallow, to the point that when he was sleeping i'd have to stare closely at his sides to make sure he was breathing.
this continued all weekend. then yesterday he started moving around more & his eyes were fully open more often than not. his respirations got faster & deeper. today he was interacting with the other gerbils more & even scraping at the bottom of the cage a little. i am very hopefuly he'll make a full recovery. the house has been too quiet without the scraping of his little feet.