May 22, 2008

A room full of rodents
New England Gerbil Show comes to Nashua
By Brian Early bearly@hippopress.com

Donna Anastasi’s love of gerbils began in December 1999. It was Christmas vacation week and her husband was off on a business trip. He wasn’t an animal lover, but she wanted to get a pet for her two young daughters. It was the perfect time. More than eight years later, she’s a gerbil breeder with 12 gerbil tanks holding more than 30 gerbils. She’s also the president of the American Gerbil Society.

“You don’t need that many gerbils,” she said. “I breed them and I show them.”

She will show them and judge others at the Seventh Annual New England Gerbil Show at the Holiday Inn in Nashua on May 17. She’s been there since the first show, which was held at her church in Merrimack. It was also the first show in the States.

It’s a growing event as well. They’ve never had more than 75 breeders in the past; this year there are 100.

“It’s quirky, fun and easy,” she said about raising gerbils, which tend to have a life of about three years. The gerbils are monogamous and mate for life, starting when they are four months old. Then they can breed every five weeks.

She’s well aware that others might find her hobby a bit weird, though she claims nobody will make fun of her to her face.

“People think you’re nuts if you show gerbils,” she said. “In England, they don’t think that way.”

The first gerbil show in England was in 1969, the same year the National Gerbil Society was formed. There are other gerbil societies around Europe. The American Gerbil Society, which formed briefly in 1999 then again in its present form in 2001, is the first one for the United States.

Gerbils as pets in the West are a recent phenomenon. In the United States, it began in the 1960s, according to the National Gerbil Society’s Web site. It was only 100 years prior that a French naturalist, Abbé Armande David, was the first European to document gerbils in his trips to Mongolia. There are breeders from all around the world who bring out different colors of the gerbils’ fur. At the shows they come together and celebrate the gerbil.

At the New England show, Anastasi said, the events are part gerbil show and part gerbil olympics. The judging of gerbils is similar to the judging at dog or cat shows — the animals are appraised in terms of body type, fur color, size and condition, and even temperament.

They also have hamtrack races, where gerbils race around a track in balls. And there’s a paper towel competition. “Gerbils love to gnaw on cardboard,” Anastasi said. The events tend to be brief. “They’re not known for having a long attention span,” she said.

But they are curious animals, she said, and they’re nice. They’re not known for biting, as hamsters are known to do. But there are dangers. If two gerbils who didn’t grow up together are housed in the same tank, they might fight to the death, she said.

Anastasi hasn’t missed a show yet, including shows in the Midwest. Gerbils, she said, enjoy a car ride. “They’re always up for an adventure,” she said. “They’re bold and curious.”

As for her two daughters, one is in high school now and isn’t interested in gerbils. The other one has started breeding her own and has traveled to shows with her mother. And Anastasi is still married, and she says her husband has been a good sport.

“I don’t think he’d ever thought that he would have a room full of rodents,” she said.

Hear Brian Early's coverage of the gerbil show, as reported on NHPR by clicking here.