# How cold is too cold for Gerbils?



## deanbayley (Sep 13, 2009)

Hi Guys,

We have had our 4 Gerbils for about 6 months now and its getting to that time of year again where its not all that warm, last year we ended up with a massive heating bill (£650 Nov-Feb) by leaving the heating on at about 70% all the time to keep the house warm, i have since installed a programmable thermostat to ensure the house is warm when we, wake-up, go to sleep, and the bits in-between when we're actually home, this will mean that through the day when we are both at work it may get much colder than i would be happy with for the poor Gerbils..

I was wondering what you guys thought about a heat-mat, something like this?

A 20w heat mat will cost about £1.50 a month to run if it was on all the time...

All opinions welcome, thanks!

Dean & Louise...


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## Akai-Chan (Feb 21, 2009)

TBH I dunno if the gerbils will need it, so long as it isn't freezing temperature...

If they have their nests in whatever they burrow in and plenty of bedding they should be fine, just keep them in a warm part of the house away from windows or vents  Remember, they have warm fur and digging material to hide under and it probably stays quite toasty in there, us silly humans don't have fur so we feel the cold more often ^_^

Peace
Akai-Chan


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## Marcia (Mar 10, 2009)

They don't need heat mats etc...

As long as your house stays at a temperature that isn't too cold for you, the gerbils will be fine.

All 36 of ours are fine at the moment and we havn't had any heating on since March


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## deanbayley (Sep 13, 2009)

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the quick replies, its currently 18.6c (10:00am) next to their cage, i must admit before i measured it i thought it was colder, we turned our heating off completely in march too, it'll probably drop to about 10c in the middle of the day when we're at work by December time, I'm going to give them a lot more cosi bedding (that stuff that looks like cotton wool) on the next muck-out, they seem to love building nests with that stuff..

Every now and then we go to PAH and buy them one of the red and green tubes, it has that bedding inside and in 30 seconds its gone...

So as long as the house stays above 10c you think they'll be ok?

D.


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## Marcia (Mar 10, 2009)

deanbayley said:


> Hi Guys,
> 
> Thanks for the quick replies, its currently 18.6c (10:00am) next to their cage, i must admit before i measured it i thought it was colder, we turned our heating off completely in march too, it'll probably drop to about 10c in the middle of the day when we're at work by December time, I'm going to give them a lot more cosi bedding (that stuff that looks like cotton wool) on the next muck-out, they seem to love building nests with that stuff..
> 
> ...


Avoid that cotton wool style bedding. It's very bad for gerbils.

All i do is give my gerbils loads of extra hay and safe paper bedding (from PAH)


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## deanbayley (Sep 13, 2009)

Marcia said:


> Avoid that cotton wool style bedding. It's very bad for gerbils.


OK will do 

Their current bedding is about 60% shavings and 40% safe bedding both from PAH, filled to just over 1/3 of the tank..

D.


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## Marcia (Mar 10, 2009)

There's only one problem.....we need pics of your gerbils!


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## deanbayley (Sep 13, 2009)

Here are our pets, Sam is the greedy one, Remi is the curious one, Murphy is the speedy one and lastly Dimitri is the shy one, we love em all..

Although not a Gerbil, Jack is too cute to leave out, he is currently busy defiling his favourite teddy...

We adopted Sam & Remi from PAH and bought Dimitri & Murphy a few weeks later, it took 2 weeks of split caging swaping 6 times a day to get them to live together, we tried after a week and i've still got the scars to prove it...

Jack we have had for 3 months, he walked into where i work, we took him to the vet to get his chip scanned and the people who he was registered to said they didn't want him..

Lastly we have 5 Guinea pigs, three girls, Geisha (18 months), Lady (16 Months), Snowball (9 Months), two boys, Ginger Pig (12 months) and Alfie (9 Months), we are trying to find 5 Star homes for them at the moment, we were given them as a moving in present (or at least that was the excuse the unnamed family members used) we don't have a garden and we don't feel we can give them the life they deserve, we are looking for new homes for Lady and Geisha together and Snowball to join a new friend because she was picked on by the two older girls, if anyone already has guinea pigs and can give these guys some amazing homes give us a bell


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## Marcia (Mar 10, 2009)

They are gorgeous 

And i absolutely love pink eyed whites


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## Guest (Sep 15, 2009)

Awww! They're lovely! 
Just like the others said, give them plenty of bedding and they should be fine


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