05/09/2026
Meet ONSLO, aged 2yrs 🤎
Surrendered here today after his brother passed a few days ago.
Reasonably friendly and confident chap who's a cutie, but he's really quite overweight 🫤
In my experience of a few hundred gerbils, the following are healthy weight ranges for gerbils.
This is including small, medium & large builds and long gerbils with 2/3 grammes here or there discrepancy.
Male 70-90g
Female 65-80g
I have had a couple of larger, longer females at mid 80s and a couple more like 61/2g who have been very small in frame, both healthy.
I have also had a few males 65-68g who again have been small framed and a couple of big boys at mid 90s, both healthy.
I am no expert, but I have handled and weighed MANY gerbils on a daily basis for years so am saying that the majority of healthy weight gerbils have all been within stated margins above.
I remember being a little worried about my pretty little Jennifer some time back...she was more of a medium sized gerbil, but weighed what most of my small framed gerbils did, so she saw our vet who didn't think she was underweight at all, just pretty perfect.
I think what's perfect medically would seem skinny to most...it did to me!
I'd prefer for my gerbils to have a few grammes over that and am not strict in that sense so that if and when illness falls, teeth problems occur, they have a couple of grammes to play with.
Saying that, more than 10g over is a considerable amount to them.
The worst I've ever had was around 130g and he just felt awful. He still got around okay surprisingly, but it wasn't nice to see. He was about 45-50g over what he should have been more than half his ideal weight again on top of his little ness 😔
There are a few factors at play in this I believe...
Obvious over feeding/ treats, but it can also be the type of food/ treats. For example, most of the gerbils who have come in severely obese have been fed on Burgess pellets. Now they're not the worst food on the market (they are a bit high in salt if I remember correctly) and I've even been known to mix a bag in to our food tub if donated, but solely these seem to be a common factor in chunkiness.
Obviously another factor is the type of enclosure, bedding depth, wheel etc and play pen/ free roam time.
Some gerbils are naturally more sedimentary than others just like humans. Digging uses up the most energy I think followed by wheel spinning.
Not having food ready there in a bowl and having to forage is also another important factor also for stimulation too, just as new toys and enrichment. All things that can help get them moving.
I estimate ONSLO to be a medium frame-sized gerbil (many are) and should be around 80g. Being 22g overweight is massive!
Not only would his lust for life improve and general activity increase (even if already active), but he would feel better! Just like when we as humans are over what we should be, we can feel sluggish.
Another huge factor is the strain it is having on his tiny heart...I've seen this problem far too many times and it's awful.
The plan is to feed him 1 teaspoon of our regular mix with a teensy treat here and there only, not to diet him.
It would actually be quite dangerous to do this.
I have got some new ingredients for special nutritional plans which I'm making up at the moment so as soon as they're ready I'll incorporate the weight loss one.
I plan to share these foods and plans after I've used them for a while to see if they work.
I know that Lisa Beedham has already started the weight loss one as seems to have had some success.
