Baby gerbil questions, please help?

Question
Hello, my name is Megan. I firstly would like to thank you for considering my question, but I must admit that it will be a long one!

In order for you to answer me, maybe I should start at the beginnig;

About 2 years ago, I bought two gerbils from a local petshop. I thought they were both girls, and named them Poppy and Penny. Unfortuantley, Penny became extremely ill; she was in a very bad state and we had her euthenised by a vet. While we were there, the vet sexed Poppy for me and told her she was a girl.

I didn't want Poppy to become lonely, so I bought another female from the petshop. She was about 10 weeks old when I bought her. The two mixed well, I did notice Poppy mounting the new gerbil (called Miko), but I put this down to a dominance issue, as she has always been the dominant gerbil. The mounting died down after a while, and I didn't think anything more of it.

11 days ago, Miko gave birth to five babies. I literally woke up one morning and, hello! There they were! Awkward!

We've checked the dates and been back to the pet shop, and there is no way that we could have bought Miko pregnant. So the vet was wrong, and Poppy is a boy (which is ironic because if I were to sex poppy I would have said she was a boy, but I trusted the vet's opinion).

Now then, thanks for reading that! Question time!

The babies are now 11 days old and have near enough all of their fur. I clean the cage out every two weeks, but seeming as I didn't know Miko was pregnant, she had the babies right near the end of the second week!So they were born in a dirty cage D: And now, it's beginning to look pretty manky. The fluff that makes up the nest has taken up about half of the cage, as Miko has become really nesty. I've groped out some of the worse sawdust and replaced it, but it's still not very clean. Is there any way I can clean the cage out now, or do I have to wait until the babies are up and moving? Mummy is okay with me holding them, I think; I've picked up at least two from the litter to see how they're doing, and she's been fine with it.

Also, my plan is to separate the pups at 6 weeks, putting the boys with daddy and the girls with mummy in a seperate cage. However I've heard that gerbils can get pregnant within hours of giving birth, so she may already be pregnant again, as I didn't remove Poppy from the cage; I thought she could do with a hand in raising them because she was a young mum. If this has happened, she will give birht to the second litter before the first babies are ready to leave mum! I also know that there is a chance of her getting pregnant 2, maybe even 3 times! I cannot keep the 2nd and 3rd litters, so they will be sold to friends and pet shops. I was wondering how you feel about this arrangement; Do you think there is any simpler way of doing this?

Lastly, I feel quite confident on sexing the babies, I've heard that they can be sexed from 3 weeks onwards. The way to go is that females have nipples, males generally have larger scent glands, and males have a larger gap between their anus and ural opening, and often have a wider tail base to accomodate the scrotum and testes. Please correct me if any of this information is inncorrect!

Thank you for reading my VERY LONG question, I appreciate it!

Hope to hear from you,

Meg  

Answer
Dear Meg, thank you for your question.
I would wait with cleaning the cage until the babies are t least a week older and leave as much of the old nest as possible.
It's deifinitely possible that Miko is pregnant again. Since she is nursing a litter already, the pregnancy may take as long as 45 days, so don't be surprised if she gives birth a bit later than usual.

To prevent any more pregnancies among the babies, I would recommend separating them when they are about 35 days old. Your plan of leaving the babies with their mother and father is a good one, they will need an adult to learn how to behave. Gerbils are often very complicated to introduce to each other, but babies that have had time to learn from an adult usually are much more peaceable.

I wouldn't sell any of the babies to a pe shop. you have no way of knowing where they will go then - snake food, someone who buys them only as a present, to a kid who will loose interest after a week ect. It can be hard to find good homes for all the babies. Try gerbil forums, here's an active one:
http://gerbilforum.proboards.com/
You can also try to find a rodent rescue near you, they take care to find suitable homes (shelters, if they take rodents at all often don't know much about them).

When sexing the babies, I wouldn't rely too much on the females having visible nipples. The distanc between the anus and urinary opening is the most reliable sign, especially if you have a whole litter to compare to each other. Here are two good video guides to sexing adult and juvenile gerbils:
http://www.egerbil.com/sexing.html
http://www.egerbil.com/nipple_method

I hope I was of some help to you
Jennifer