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Encourage play and exercise. Take it slow. Handle with care. Do not attempt to breed unless experienced with gerbil care.
Exercise is also important to any pet's health. Luckily gerbils are naturally active. Space and bedding for digging are the most important requirements for gerbils. Other items, however, can help. A solid wheel can provide great exercise. If it is not solid, the gerbil can get its feet or tail stuck and hurt itself. A good wheel is one that has no gaps in it but has ridges to use and run on. Also be sure to suspend the wheel off the ground from the wire top, so that it does not take up space in the cage. Pet stores sell wooden chew toys for gerbils that can provide entertainment. An exercise ball is the best way to allow your gerbil to explore the wider world and get a work out. Just beware that your gerbil may not like the confined space so if they show signs of being stressed, take them out immediately and do not put them back in there until they are calm the next day. Gerbils also love cardboard. A cheap way to entertain gerbils is to give them the cardboard center of a roll of toilet paper after you have used it up. When you first adopt your gerbil, it might be too disturbed by its new environment to be friendly. Do not try to pick it up for the first couple of days. You can, however, begin to build positive associations with it by hand-feeding it seeds, a good sign of it trusting you is when it climbs onto your hand and stays there as it eats. If it runs away with the food to a small space or a corner, do not worry because this is natural as in the wild a gerbil will have to fight for it's food. You will want to handle the gerbil often so that it becomes accustomed to human interaction. A happy gerbil will receive daily social interaction. However, you should be careful. Wash your hands before handling. Use both hands to create a big bowl that will support the gerbil. Place your hands next to the gerbil so that it will walk up on to them. Avoid standing directly above the gerbil. It will associate any shadows being cast on it with predators, causing agitation. A pair of gerbils can produce ninety-six pups a year. Those pups will soon begin to produce more babies. Unless you have considerable experience with gerbils, you should verify that you have no mixed sex pairs in your possession. Otherwise you will shortly be responsible for a small army of gerbils.