My gerbils: Past and Present
Most people visiting this page would automatically assume that I have pet gerbils just because I like squirrels. Beep! Wrong. I've owned gerbils since the age of 12, four years before I became interested in squirrels. Back then, I was interested in just rodents in general.
It all started when I purchased my first gerbil, Deimos, from a pet store. He was a white gerbil who I named after the smaller of the two moons of Mars. After a while, I though he'd be lonely, so I got him a brown friend named Enceladus and later a black girlfriend named Deanna. The first to die was Enceladus, then Deimos, then Deanna. Since then, I've had other gerbils named Galactica (black and white), K'ehleyr (black), Kira (brown), and Ganymede (brown). These are all dead. (Gerbils only live a maximum of 3 years. Most of these only made it to 1 and a half.)
During the time of the lives of those gerbils, I have had a pet mouse for two years (1993-1995). Her name was Clea. She lived with Ganymede peacefully. After her death, I decided to get a brown female gerbil to replace her. Her name was Clezamena, which is the first part of "Clea" plus "replacement" in Russian. A month later, I decided she was lonely so I bought a black male gerbil named Chippy.
As nature calls, Chippy and Clezamena decided to make more of themselves. Five baby gerbils were born in April of 1996. I named four of them Chip, Hazel, Heather and Cindy. Chip and Hazel were brown, the others were black. Chip was the only male. I sold Hazel and Cindy and kept Chip and Heather. The one without a name died young.
Of the four I had left, Clezamena was the first to die. She died on late December, just before Christmas of 1996. After a day or so, I though maybe I can replace her. There was no female gerbils available, so what the hey, I got a male. He was a white gerbil named Ganzamened, not to be confused with the mouse-loving brown gerbil with a similar name. He was to be bred with Heather.
Heather and Ganzamened mated, producing 6 offspring. Three were a rare tan color, 2 were white, and one was black. I kept a tan one, naming her Juliana. I sold another tan one to my sister. The rest died, including Ganzamened. Heather's second litter was not with Ganzamened, but with her own brother Chip (sorry if insest offends some of you people). They had 6 babies; 4 were black and 2 were brown. Only one survived for as long as he did. His name is Beaver.
As of Mar. 5, 1998 (the date I'm typing this), Beaver and Juliana are still alive. They have produced 4 babies of 3 different colors. Their second litter was more interesting; as it had 5 different colors (black, brown, gray, tan, yellow). As changes arrive, the story of my gerbils will still continue.
As of Sept. 21, 1998 (the date I'm typing this), Beaver and Juliana are both still alive, however a couple of their offspring died. Triton, their son, took a mate who just happened to be his own mother, Juliana. The two had 4 babies together, 2 tan and 2 gray; 3 females and 1 male. After this, 4 of Juliana's previous litter, all female, were traded for a black-and-white male gerbil which I named Kjipper (pronounced Chipper). This new addition will improve the genetics of my gerbils.
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