Best small furry for dd6

[Sometimeswinning]

My dd has fallen in love with having a pet. Dh and I have decided between a hamster, mouse or gerbil. I will obviously take over the care! I have always had hamsters but after visiting a few places have fallen for mice! I have also been told gerbils are lovely pets aswell. I also like the fact that mice are sold in pairs. Can anyone help me choose with my dd?

If you get rats the difference between pet shop and breeders is huge

Breeders handle them from birth so by the time they're ready to leave mum you have well handled and well socialised friendly pets .

Pet shops just breed and sell - so I think you are more likely to get a bitey one - I was only bitten once by the boy that was found in a garden and that was just fear and not being handled. But for well handled social friendly ratties a breeder is a must ! Longish wait lists tho for good ones .

Rats are just wonderful creatures. I find gerbils too quick, where as rats are a bit bigger and so easier to handle. They have big personalities much like dogs, and are just so interesting to watch, and so flipping cute. They dont normally live beyond 3 years so it's not a huge commitment in pet terms. I have had 9 over the years, such a rewarding pet!

Rats are the best, by far. Friendly, clean, clever. Gerbils really aren’t that great pets-wise.

Don't laugh, but a tortoise is a very very easy pet and would really suit a 6yo. When they're small they live inside in a little tortoise table, feed veg every day. Food and water bowels to be rinsed daily. They only poo once or twice a week, so you can poo pick very efficiently, and they only need a big clean out every few months. Initial outlay is around £150-200 for the tortoise, but tortoise tables are about £30 on Amazon, and then you just need a heat lamp and some substrate.

What do you do with a pet that lives to. 100 tho when you're 6 year old grows up and moves out ....

No problem. She's told me she will live with me forever!

Thankyou again for the feedback. I've just reserved 2 female gerbils from a breeder! They will be 10 weeks old when we pick them up. I will be doing a new thread soon for all your tips on making a lovely home for them!

Gerbils need a big cage, and deep with lots of substrate to burrow.

a good tip is an Ikea Detolf- don’t fit the glass door or shelves, lay on side and get someone handy to make you a lid- we did 2 pieces of 4 battens with chicken wire over the top.

get a sand bath, we have a Pyrex dish. Ours use it as a toilet so we clean that out regularly and the cage stays clean. You aren’t supposed to completely clean them out because they need that territory smell and it risks declanning- do one area at a time. No different “floors” or levels either for the same reason.

young gerbils are very fast, so don’t let her try to grab them to start. They’re very trainable, get a big bag of sunflower seeds, place on the palm of your hand and let them take them. Ours now hop straight into your hand if you put it in the cage. They’re very sociable, and will pop out if they hear us.

I wouldn't actually recommend the detolf for gerbils - it's too shallow. Great for hammies but gerbils need to dig deep. I'd go for a 3/4 foot fish tank instead. You should be able to get a second hand one for free or v cheap. People give them away when they're no longer watertight which isn't a problem for gerbil keeping. I highly recommend carefresh as the substrate - it holds tunnels really well, is nice and absorbent so only needs changing once a month, it's too chunky to be kicked out of the tank topper and you can get it in pretty pastel shades which looks really nice too.

This is the setup I had for my last gerbils:

The tank topper had wooden platforms, which aren't ideal as they absorb wee but better for their poor little feet than wire. If you go for something similar I'd line them with cut up cereal and tissue boxes. Actually, that's a big tip: Go ahead and start collecting cardboard now! Don't wait, they go through it faster than you can produce it! Little tissue boxes make cute hideyholes, kitchen roll tubes are a must, egg boxes with a treat or 2 in each section is a great enrichment item. Don't buy cute little plastic toys, they'll get chewed and can get sharp and obviously dangerous if ingested. Stick to the natural look with lots of wooden toys (check them regularly to make sure no nails or anything horrible are an issue) and branches from the reptile section of a supermarket are great for acting as 'roots' which they can dig around and use to support their tunnels. Gerbils aren't climbers in the way that rats or mice are though, so any branches need to have a rough texture so they can grip and not be at too steep an angle if you use them in place of ladders. The waterbowls you get for snakes make a perfect sand bath. Use special chinchilla sand, not playpit stuff, and change it every few days as they'll most likely wee in there.

I don't know if you can see in my picture, but at the bottom left there, in the tank, there is a little wooden house which was the perfect nest box. I lined it with thick cardboard (that goes for the whole of the bottom of the tank actually, supermarket box type stuff) to insulate them against the cold of the glass. Then I tore up half a roll of toilet paper for nesting material and stuffed it in there. I used a small 'Bendy logs' piece at an angle to keep their substrate form getting kicked in their, but allowing them to pop in and out. Unfortunately the retro 'nest material' cotton wool type stuff we used in the 90s is now considered dangerous. V unfortunate as it was lovely and warm!

I agree with all of this about rats. Fab, intelligent little creatures, that make wonderful pets. They aren't as bitey as hamsters either, plus they wake in the daytime.

Hamsters and gerbils aren't ideal as children's pets. Guinea pigs would be a good choice or else rats are excellent pets!

If you are going with gerbils we found the fish tank with with topper worked well.
You will never need to recycle a cardboard tube again.

Hello. I'm a volunteer in animal rescue and I'm a Gerbil Specialist. Please don't get Gerbils for your DD. We don't rehome Gerbils to any child under 9, as they are too delicate. They are an older child or adult pet. Gerbils, like all prey animals are not keen on being handled. They area watch pet, not interactive generally, unless hand tamed from young.

As most of the information online for Gerbil care is misleading and in many cases bad for their welfare, I've written my own website which will give you all the information you need (or anyone else reading this). Key points are they must be kept in a large glass tank like the attached pic (never hamster type cages). In groups of 2+. They need daily out of tank time.

Thanks for getting opinions before commiting to a pet, and please "adopt don't shop" as rescues are over run with unwanted pets right now.

gerbilcare.co.uk/

Key points are they must be kept in a large glass tank like the attached pic (never hamster type cages). In groups of 2+. They need daily out of tank time

interestingly that picture is of a Detolf, which a pp said isn’t suitable…

Detolfs are suited to Gerbils. Gerbils need a minimum of 10 inches of burrowing substrate. Detolfs are 14 inches deep. There are also options to have different custom made lids which give more height. Perhaps you'd like to take a look at the website I provided as it shows all the available options for Gerbil housing and DIY hacks.

gerbilcare.co.uk/

Also dont forget gerbils tails can break off if handled roughly....

I came to say rats! I would LOVE to have pet ratties but my cats would stop at nothing to try and eat them for dinner

I love my gerbils, they're pretty friendly, like to say hello and play with me. But they are delicate, mostly I let them come to me rather than pick them up. You have to be quite patient, but they are so so cute!

Care for a child is quite easy, daily food and water, scoop out their sandbath and I do a basic clean of the wood platforms every other day. You would need to do their cage cleans and supervise play sessions though.

I have a large aquarium with a tank topper, we bought it second hand off ebay, but it's quite easy to make your own. I prefer it to a deltof as I find it really hard to keep an area separate for their food/water and wheel with the deltof because their bedding goes everywhere! And mine love as deeper bedding as you can get, with a deltof to provide 12 inches your bedding is going everywhere because they will kick it out. But a deltof is fine it's just personal preference

See this is where I think rats are so much easier!

Clean out once a week . You can litter train them . They aren't delicate and like being handled , carried around and loved . They have massive personality. They bond easily with their human and their companion . Just super easy friendly little critters that are so underrated! They love to play , they like cuddles, it's a no brainer for me .

My boys have 3 female Dumbo rats and I only agreed originally because I thought well they only live 2 or 3 years. Oh my word now I love them and really wish rats live longer. They are so clever, affectionate and funny. We also were able to litter train them and they will only do their business in the corners of the cages where their litter is (can't speak for all rats but after lots of youtube videos on it worked for us). They enjoy freedom running and playing in the room, they have pretty good recall when it's time to put them back. We got ours from a breeder not pet shop.

Oh op I fear you've made the wrong choice over ratties ! ❤️

Gerbils are really delicate and I know from experience kids want to pet their pet ....

Get rats . Seriously.

I'm so heartened to see the rattle love here !

I would choose them over any other small pet . I'm in a breeder waiting list and my god she's hardcore ! She wants to know exactly what I'll be feeding them before she'll even add me to the wait list ! Luckily I had 9 before and used rat rations website which she approved of !

It's
Gonna cost me £75 for 3 kittens but they're so worth it . Always recommend a breeder though . I had a baptism of fire with my rescue babies . But even the bitey boy I turned around and he was called cuddly Dudley. He was a baby . I loved him so much ! They really are forgiving, gorgeous little souls . But for a kiddie a breeder is best cost they're well handled and socialised before you get them .