# Salt and mineral stone for gerbils..... Yes or No, plus photo question



## ForestWomble (May 2, 2013)

Hi, a friend bought me a salt and mineral stone for my gerbils and I did some research on if it's ok to feed them it.
Some websites say it's an essential part of the diet while other sites say don't give them as they are bad or not needed.
Is it ok to give them it or not?

Thank you

p.s. How do you put photos on here? I really want to show you my babies but can't work it out?


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## polishrose (Oct 26, 2011)

I think mineral stones are OK but you need gerbilnik to advise on that-she's the gerbil expert.
As to the photos, click on the paperclip icon and choose the file you want to add and click upload.You can add up to 5 photos to a post  HTH


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## HazelandDan (Apr 22, 2012)

copied from egerbil (Other Food Supplements | eGerbil)

'Vitamin and mineral blocks, powders, and liquid vitamin supplements

With a good diet these are not needed nutritionally, however they can be added for several reasons. The block is often hard and apart from providing vitamins and minerals, it helps keep their teeth in trim. Also pregnant/ nursing females will appreciate the extra source of calcium, which is needed for the production of milk. Powders of calcium and/or other vitamins and minerals can be useful for adding to the regular food of nursing animals or animals that are under par and are convalescing in a first aid tank etc. The same also goes for liquid vitamins that can be added to their drinking water, however it should be noted that these degrade very fast and need changing on a daily basis to be of any worthwhile use. These preparations are best used for specific purposes and that they are probably unnecessary with healthy gerbils on a good diet. There are two types of vitamins, fat-soluble ones and water soluble ones. Excesses of fat-soluble vitamins can be dangerous because they are stored in fat cells in the body and it is easy to overdose with these. Water-soluble vitamins are safer but excesses of them are passed in the urine, so overdosing is a waste of money and hard on the kidneys.'

I trust everything i read there so it's probably the best place to search for gerbil info, rather than google. Ed the guy who runs the site has crazy good gerbil knowledge, as do the other admin (including gerbilnik AKA Indy)

Another way to add photos so they come up in the main text rather than as an attachment is to type 
[ img] your pic URL here [ / img ]
but without the spaces (and make sure your pic is the right size before hand )


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## GerbilNik (Apr 1, 2011)

I normally have mineral stones in the tanks. It's there that way if they need it and Gerbils are excellent at deciding what their body needs at any particular time.


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## ForestWomble (May 2, 2013)

Thank you everyone. I've put the stone in and I'll wait and see if they use it.

Yang is deff. getting used to me now, she comes out of her house to say hello whenever I open the cage door now :001_wub:

Yin followed Yang earlier when she came to say ''hello'' and gave me a good sniff so it looks like she may be learning from her sister that I'm OK.


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