One last chance, please help

Question
I have 2 gerbils which gave birth on Nov. 3 every few days she eats her babies, what started out as alot went to 6, then 4 and she did good for over 2 weeks, yesterday I found one dead,not ate..yet...today there is only 1. the cage is undisturbed, and she appears to be a good mother. She keeps them in a hut all day and all night and is still nursing them. The mice seem very active and healthy they were completely white and kept trying to adventure out on their own, don't know if the mice are dying naturally and she is eating the dead ones or she is slowly eating them. I took the last living one out today and am gonna try to raise it myself I know if I keep it with her it will die afor certain!! I need to know how to take care of it until it is an adult by my own hands. Please help I can't let this one die on me also. Is it too young? How do I feed it? What does it need? What can it eat, need to drink?

Answer
Hi Michele,

She will eat the babies if they die, as it is a way of keeping the nest clean (so they don't rot). Although this is not nice to watch it is totally naturally, and she will only do it if the babies die or if she feels very stressed out!

If you are raising it on your own it must firstly be kept warm all the time or it will certainly die. Lamps are a good way of giving heat, there are special lamps you can buy, but this is an emergency so if you have a light that produces a lot of heat put it over the cage you are now keeping this baby in!
You will need to feed kitten replacement milk (found in pet shops) it is a powder which you mix with water. You must not feed cows milk as it is too rich!! Be very careful when feeding as the babies can very very easily choke. This will cover both food and drink, but do put a bottle of water in the cage too so that it is there for when the baby can learn to use it! Also it will need feeding every few hours, so you may need to actually get up in the night! Try putting in some canary seed (found in pet shops also) in a bowl as this will encourage the baby to try and eat on its own as soon as it can, and canary seed is a good size!

Basically to survive it needs to be warm and fed!

I hope this helps,
Let me know what happens,
Charlie.