Three weeks ago, Conner’s gerbils (BJ and John .. don’t ask, we had an unfortunate gender mix up at the time of purchase) had their first baby. It was tiny, hairless, and resembled nothing so much as a jelly bean with legs. He named it Chewy. Conner was absolutely delighted, and who wouldn’t be at that age? His pets were producing more pets! A potentially endless supply of pets! Interestingly enough, I was a bit dismayed for the exact same reason; an endless supply of pets.

We read all about raising baby gerbils on the internet. How to feed the parents while they are child rearing (high protein and plenty of water). When to wean them (around four weeks). How to make sure they are safe (take all the extra stuff out of the cage). Sadly, the last one didn’t quite get followed as diligently as it should have, and it appears Chewy paid the price for our mistake. Conner found him dead in the corner of his cage yesterday afternoon. We suspect foul play on the part of the hollow coconut the gerbils use as a little shelter. If I had to guess I would say he got stuck between it and the aquarium glass. It’s a shame too, as he was very healthy and his parents were taking excellent care of him. He had a full coat of brown fur and had recently opened his eyes for the first time.

Conner was devastated. He told us he could not go on in life without his Chewy. He begged him to come back, please come back! He’s never really dealt with death before so it was all very hard on him. Fortunately he mostly forgot about it about a half hour later and was back to his usual mischief. The gerbils were also very upset, I don’t think they really realized what happened and were searching desperately for their little son. As it turns out gerbils have a memory just slightly longer than Conner’s, and they seem to be back to normal now as well.

It was a very sad day. Give it a few weeks though, and mother nature will fix everything when the next batch of little jelly beans comes along.