mite-y gerbils
By anders pearson 20 Jun 2003
our gerbils managed to get mites somehow. not a big deal but annoying to the poor little guys.
so last night, lani and i instituted a little mite holocaust. we took the gerbils out of their cage and let them run around in the bathtub while we disassembled the cage and cleaned it thoroughly. then, before they went back in, we sprayed each of them with some kind of anti-mite spray.
in the process we’ve learned several things about baby gerbils:
- baby gerbils are the slipperiest objects known to man. if you pick one up and don't complete enclose it with your hands it will launch out of your hands like it was fired from a gun with absolutely no regard for its own safety and paying no attention to how high up it is from the floor.
- baby gerbils are, as far as we can tell, indestructable. making a parachute free descent of 5 feet onto a hard tile floor (thanks to #1) startles them for a second but otherwise seems to produce no ill effects (to the gerbils at least. lani and i both had mild heart attacks).
- if you turn the baby gerbil onto its back in the palm of your hand it seems to hypnotize it and it will lay there without moving indefinitely. if you ever need to transport baby gerbils, this appears to be the way to do it without them going aerial on you.
- wet gerbils are cute in a pathetic sort of way.
i’ll post some pictures later when i have time.