A gerbil’s teeth are constantly growing – similar to guinea pigs, rabbits, etc – and as such, they require hard objects such as wood, branches and logs to gnaw on. Failure to provide such objects to gerbils (or any other similar animal) often results in overgrown teeth which can lead to starvation and pain.

I’ve set up their main tank with a few log tunnels but decided to add a little more in their playpen which is connected via a tunnel. Anything is game really, as long as it isn’t plastic and is safe to swallow – things like cardboard, pine cones and more logs. Since my mother-in-law has a few apple trees in her garden, I thought it’d be nice to throw in some branches as well. I sunned them together with the pine cones for a few days and toss them into the playpen.

As you can see, they were an instant hit!