If you are an animal lovers, especially loves small animal such as hamster, ground squirrel, sugar glider or rabbits, then you might already heard about gerbil. Gerbil is a small animal, mammal animals that belong to the sub family of Gerbillinae from the order of Rodentia just like mice and hamster. Some people also called gerbil as a dessert rats, as they are originated from the arid desert of Middle East. Some species can be found in many places on Middle East such as Iraq, Afghanistan, part of Africa, some part of Central Asia and one species can also be found in Goby desert, Mongolia. Although gerbil is small sized animals, they are adept scavenger and could survive in arid habitat such as desert and savannah. They could survive for a long time in arid desert and they are smart animals that can be found roaming on the desert. They are mostly active during days, and they live in large group of colony in order to have a better chance of survivals in rough habitat like desert. Like we mention earlier, gerbil comes from the order of Rodentia so they are related with mice and hamster, and all of them belongs to the family classification of Muridae. Today, you can found gerbil as a house pet, and you can even buy one as your own house pet. They also become quite popular small house pet in many countries.
Gerbil is a small animal similar to hamster. Gerbils come from the word of jerboa which means a similar group of desert rodents. Generally, a house gerbils could reach at least 6 to 12 inches. This include its tail that is almost half of their total length. Although gerbil is small animals, there is a species of gerbils called as Great gerbils that could reach to at least 16 inches. Great gerbil is native species of gerbil from Turkmenistan and some part of central Asia. The average weight of male adult gerbil is at least 2.5 ounces. Gerbils are actually a social animals and in the wild they live in groups, a large group is called a colony, they live in a burrow and they can use their sense of smell to distinguish and identify each and every other member of their group. This gerbil sense of smell will be crucial and important if you decide to take care of gerbil.
Now, if you decide to bought gerbil and take care of it, then you need to know lot more about it. You will need to know how to feed it, how to create a comfortable living cage for them, how to train them, how to avoid making gerbil aggressive and killing each other and also how to take care of sick gerbil. One thing you should know is, that sometimes gerbil can have an ear infection. A common disease for gerbil and pretty easy to take care of, but sometimes can be quite tricky. If you still don’t know about it, let us tell you more about what is gerbil ear infection, The Types of Ear Infection on Gerbill and how to prevent or at least take care of it properly and safely for gerbil.
All about gerbil ear infection and the types of ear infection affecting gerbil
Gerbil is a Rodentia animals, related with mice and hamster. Gerbil have quite a sensitive ears, which means any sort of infection and inflammation on gerbil’s ear might result in severe condition and can even result in fatalities. Gerbil’s ear will develop more than two years old and they will develop masses within their inner ear. When gerbil accumulate a dirt and keratin in their ear, it will produces a cells named epithelial. Although not really harmful or tumorous, this condition might absorbing mass of bone beneath gerbil’s ear and this condition is called aural cholesteatomas. This condition might be caused by ear infection, and it is one of the most fatal and severe ear disease for gerbil. To prevent it, we need to know more about ear infections on Gerbil.
- The types of ear infection that affecting gerbil
There are many types of ear infection that can affect your gerbil. Many types of gerbil ear infection are quite similar with hamster infection too. So, since gerbil is similar with hamster, some of ear infection might be quite similar and even same with hamster. If we are talking about ear infection on gerbil, then there are some type of it that we can use to differentiate it. This is to make sure we know what causing it and then you can take care of it properly and safely. There are at least three types of ear infection on gerbil, one is ear infection caused by bacteria or virus, one is caused by fungus and the other is caused by dirt and wounds that caused inflammation. So therefore there are at least three types of gerbil ear infection according to what might cause them. Bacterial ear infection, fungal ear infection and then there is wound inflammation.
- Symptoms and how to treat it
When gerbil is suffering from ear infection, there are many symptoms you can see to help you diagnose them. Some symptoms that could be seen on gerbil when it is suffering from ear infection are hearing loss, obstruction on ear passage, foul smelling odor and sometime white gooey liquid can be seen from oozing from gerbil ear, sometimes you could also find it head is tilting.
To treat on the gerbil ear infection, you need to know first what might causing them. If it is bacteria or virus infection, then you will need an anti bacterial agent to clear the infection and treat inflammation. For fungus infection, you need to clear out the fungal infestation by using anti-fungal agent. If it is caused by wound inflammation, you need to clear out the wound first to make sure it didn’t turn into worse condition. To treat it right and properly, you first need to know about The Types of Ear Infection on Gerbill.