I have been a bit remiss in updating about Berry since he first joined our family. It’s hard to believe he has been with us over two years now and, I’m pleased to say, is still going strong.
Things have changed a lot in our relationship with Berry since we first got him. He is still prone to bite given half the chance, the worst times are when Derek is trying to pick up berry’s food bowl, to feed him. If he hasn’t checked where Berry is before hand the little devil will come launching out of nowhere and give Derek a good chomp, usually resulting in spilt gerbil food. Having said that, Berry does love being hand-fed sunflowers, though again if we’re not paying attention he will bite our fingers if the chance presents itself. I know that makes Berry sound a bit mean, but he’s not really, he is very sweet just a bit confused and we do love him very much.
One mistake we did make with Berry early on was not to realise he doesn’t like to come out of his cage very much. All our past gerbils have loved running around on the floor, climbing and generally exploring where their little gerbily legs will let them, but Berry is not like our other gerbils.
After giving Berry a few days to settle in we started letting him out of his cage. Thinking we knew best when Berry refused to leave his home, we tipped him out – so he would learn what fun running around was. Unfortunately all we ended up with was a stressed gerbil and bitten fingers. Eventually we did get the message that Berry liked being a hermit, and we only got him out of his cage when it was cleaning out time. We just make do with little glimpses of him when he gets up to get something to eat or pop to the loo!
Gradually over time he has, and still is, mellowing. Cleaning out time is easier and less stressful and Berry is actually starting to seem enjoy running around a bit more now. We are still hopeful we will get to let him our more, and see more of him. Plus the biting incidents at feeding time are getting fewer and far between.
Berry eating one of his favourite treats, a pumpkin seed
One thing we are very proud of with Berry is that we taught him how to eat pumpkin seeds. We feed Berry Supreme Gerri Gerbil food, which contains pumpkin seeds in their cases. Our poor little Berry didn’t used to know what they were. If I peeled one for him he’d wolf it down, so we knew he liked them. I started half peeling a pumpkin seed and giving it to him. At first he’d just eat to the case and then drop it, but over time he gradually learned. It was actually a few weeks ago we saw evidence that he had shelled and eaten a pumpkin seed all by himself. It may not sound like much, but I was so proud of him and myself.
Even though our relationship with Berry is not quite what we had planned for when we first got him, we know he loves us and we love him. Our little black gerbil has his own little ways of letting us know we are important to him, like he waits for us at feeding time and then runs off and disappears when we turn up. He will soon reappear to be hand fed sunflowers though and to check what’s been added to his food bowl. He also always has a little drink of water when we fill up his water bottle.
It is amazing the number of ways Berry lets us know we are important to him and most importantly that he trusts us. He makes it very easy to forgive him when he goes a little crazy and bites us :-)
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