Ship Full o' Pirates

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You may have figured out that I say yes to pets way too often. I won’t run down the list of pets again, you can go read the post titled Pets fer Pirates if you want to know. We have had some deaths since I wrote that post. One snake (old age?) and some gerbils (snake food) (shhhh, don’t tell P*TA) (and anyway, it’s Frugal Friday and that is very frugal). But, that’s not what I was gonna tell you about. I was gonna tell you how gerbils are a very frugal pet.

As a mom, I’m supposed to think about the cost of owning a pet before saying yes, right? Well, in my defense, I did decide against the Bearded Dragons. I’m almost sorry for that decision because they are so cool. But they eat alot of crickets, and that adds up, but they’re so cool. Maybe I should just call the pet store and see if they have any. OK, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, counting the cost.

You can’t do much about the food the Gerbils need, but where litter/bedding is concerned, we can get creative. Gerbils can live in sand, soil, pine shavings, hay, weed grasses, or paper, and probably other stuff as well. So, we use what we have. Hay is really cheap, but we don’t always have it. Sand is very fun for the gerbils, but not so good in the cooler months. Soil suits me just fine, because we have it in abundance, and any insects in the soil are good fodder for the critters.

Right now what we are using is paper. My Very Dear Hubby can bring home nearly unlimited amounts of used paper from his work. We put it through the shredder before putting it in the cage. The gerbils love it. The rabbit finds it entertaining as well, but it does not absorb odor good enough to last more than about 3 days for a rabbit. Gerbils are really low odor animals, so it’s ok for them for the week.

I know how temptingly cute the little wooden houses are that the pet stores sell for gerbils. But you don’t have to buy those little houses for your gerbils. You can actually raise gerbils without any little shelter in the cage and the gerbils don’t seem to mind. But if you want them to have a house, buy a raw coconut. Saw the coconut in half and give half to the gerbils. They do need to gnaw on something. Coconut is good for that because it’s so blazin’ hard, and it’s edible. Don’t go out to the lumber pile and get some wood for your gerbils. Unless you milled that timber yourself, likely it’s been treated with some kind of chemicals. You can also give them a broken clay pot for a house, but that does nothing for the need to gnaw.

A good way to supplement the gerbils diet for free is to toss them the occasional insect. They love crickets and June bugs and grubs, all of which roam the planet in abundance. I have heard tell of Gerbils feasting on such exotic creatures as giant stick bugs, but I think that’s a rural phenomenon. We don’t find a lot of stick bugs in the city, usually not the giant variety anyway.

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