» Nipping Gerbils?

I was handling some of the gerbils at college today and was nipped by one of the females, my friend was also nipped by the other female. Also last week I was nipped by one of the males who was born at the college over a year ago now so must be used to the envrionment and everthing.
I'd quite like to have gerbils in the future, so I was just wondering are they normally quite nippy animals?
It may just be the college having not very well handled animals as I know a lot of the animals there are not particularly friendly.
Just curious really, thanks for your help in advance!

I'vr never been nipped by a gerbil, even a ones that were not that tame. I think in general, even poorly handled gerbil can come over nicely, they seem to be naturally friendly animals.

I suppose any small animal can be prone to biting if they feel scared. Ace, the gerbil I rescued a while back, had been through a lot in her life but never even attempted to bite, which was a pleasant surprise considering she had plenty of reason to.

Gerbils will usually only nip if they're hurt, frightened or not used to being handled. There are some, of course, that just like to chew on your fingers in play. You can tell the difference between that and a true "leave me alone" nip. Don't let it put you off having gerbils, they're such great pets!

I agree I have only been bitten once by a gerbil and I've handled quite a few!!

It happened last week I was placing 2 young females back in their clean tank - I scooped them up from the front as I always do but noticed something was stuck on one girls tum so instead of putting her back like she expected I turned her round to look and she sank her teeth into my finger *ouch* It was very deep and bled for an hour! She really meant it I was shocked but it made me realise that even these even tempered creatures will bite if taken by surprise.

She looked really ashamed afterwards - I'm sure they know when they've hurt you.

Nice to see you SK!

Roseann

Didn't realise you were on here Roseann

Off topic - sorry

SK - most of us are on Facebook too

Nah I deleted my Facebook account. I didn't see the point...

Joined not too long ago. I've missed our genetic conversations.

Roseann

This went a bit off topic.
Sorry I havn't been on in a while to reply, thanks for your info everyone, I think perhaps they were just scared then, at one point we were trying to sex them too so they probably didn't like that too much! I certainly won't let it put me off from having gerbils in the future I think they're are lovely.