Epilepsy in gerbils causes seizures
which many times appear to come out of nowhere. While the
gerbil is having a seizure it can easily cause physical harm
to itself by hitting an object in its cage. Seizures usually
are caused by high stress levels or rough handling of the
animal.
In recent years significant amounts of research has been
done on epilepsy and gerbils. It has been found that if you
handle the gerbil numerous times during the first few weeks
of its life you can significantly reduce the risk of it forming
epilepsy later in life.
Epilepsy can be inherited from the parents which means that
if you know either of the parents are prone to epilepsy you
should take the advice given above regarding handling. Gerbils
which are inbred almost always will have these seizures at
some point in their lives as they are much more likely to
have some degree of epilepsy. Inbreeding can also cause many
other health issues that you can read about in our gerbil
health section. |
