[Queen Of The High Teas]

I have 3 gerbils. Best bits of advice I can give you is:

1. They looove to dig. Endlessly. All the time. So you'll deffo want a cage that holds a lot of bedding.

2. They make awesome cardboard destroying machines!! Seriously, you can cut down loads of your recycling box by giving them empty cardboard boxes, tubes, and tubs, like cake boxes, toothpaste box, kitchen roll tube, empty food boxes. This is a nice cheap way of giving them toys and something to do. In fact, they destroy stuff so quickly I wouldn't bother buying any real expensive toys, they'd be rather a waste of money.

3. You don't actually need to use up loads of bedding in the cage. It will get expensive and won't last long. I just put enough in to cover the floor and then put in loads of cardboard, mainly old boxes that parcels and stuff has come in, that I tear into big flat pieces to store. If you do this, although there won't be anything to actually dig in straight away, they will chew it up to bits and therefore make their own bedding in it. I gave mine 2 huge boxes that my zoozones came in, and within a week they had megazorb/carefresh style bedding. IMO this is better for them as it gives them something to do rather than just a ready made bed.

4. Buy some super cheap toilet paper. Then unravel it a bit and put it in the cage. They will pull it to pieces, loads of fun and cheap to do. The hay I feed the buns seems a firm favorite too.

With the wheel it depend on the gerb. I gave mine one and they never used it. Intact all it seemed to do was fill up with bedding and take up unneccesary digging space so I ditched it.

I couldn't find a cage I liked that seemed big enough, so I converted an old wooden clothes chest (ottaman) into a cage. I bought the chest for £19 off eBay, cut out the whole front and put plexiglass in it, and fixed some old wire from a spare cage into the roof. Whole thing cost £35, and the top opens lovely and big to get them out or clean it. I will put a pic up if you want to see it.