Eve & Reilly

Eve and Reilly are a schimmel and champagne pair I got from my friend Mindy in New Jersey. Their parents were a champagne (Totts) and a schimmel (Honey). They were born in a litter of 6 on the the 16th of December, 1997, and came to my home on the 17th of January. The two of them inhabit the top shelf of my "home entertainment center" in my bedroom. They have babies, too, so far numbering 28!

You can see Eve is really faded, how neat!

Eve is an absolute *dear*. She loves curling up inside their nesting box or in the tin can with her mate Reilly. She's learned how to do acrobatics on the wheel, which is dangerous, so they no longer have one! So instead she climbs up the waterbottle and gnaws at the roof ;) Originally, one of her brothers lived with Reilly. His name is Oliver, but I thought he was Eve. He was a cutie! But about a week or two after I got them, I realized Eve/Oliver was a boy! I let Mindy know immediatly, because she had the "real" Eve, a female, and was planning on keeping her with some males (!!!). So a few days later I went and got the "real" Eve. Eve looks a lot like her mom, Honey, who is getting rather faded. Eve is the same color now, very very light creamy with a slight smudge of orange on her face.

Citizen Reilly of the Council ;)

Reilly is Eve's mate, a champagne male. He's a sweetie too, slightly smaller than Eve, believe it or not. He's a very exciteable young fellow, though I think he's getting calmer. He used to start thumping whenever I walked into the room! But now he loves being handled, he's such a pretty thing. All I have to do is stick my hand in the tank and he'll come over, eager to be held. He also likes to sit on my shoulder = ) He's just a lovely little boy.

Fun lovin' gerbs

Eve and Reilly are almost always bouncing off the walls. That is, when they're not asleep. They poke their heads in and out of their nestbox like little gophers. I had them in the play box once, and Eve was darting back and forth so fast you couldn't keep your eye on her! When I play with their pups, they go bonkers and start climbing up my arm, and from there they run back and forth across my shoulders, and Eve often climbs on top of my head too! (wish I could get a picture of that but I can't, for obvious reasons). It's the funniest thing.

Reilly Perching on My Hand

Reilly on their house

I bought Eve & Reilly a little wooden house. At first I thought such things were a waste of money, but this one is really nice. It also has lots of space (there's a smaller version of it too, that my sister has) for them to raise their babies in. If you back it up to the glass, like I did, you can see inside! I plan to leave it in even when they have babies, because I'll only have to lift it up to get a look. Besides, sometimes they don't even use it anyway = ) They seem to move in and out of it, one week sleeping in it, the next week not. But when they're in there it's soooo cute!

I'm gonna escape, watch it!

When I take the tank down onto my chair to take a look a their babies, my elbow is always in the perfect spot for the gerbs to climb up their waterbottle and climb onto me! Here is Reilly getting ready to pounce on me, looking cute as could be ;)

New parents!

Eve and Reilly became parents on April 2nd, 1998! They had 7 beautiful babies! See their page here. Eve and Reilly are doing a bang-up job at first time parenthood, especially for being so young (4 months old)! Eve is a little skittish about the babies, and if I take the lid off the tank she'll zip right off them and into the house to hide, but Reilly is an extremely devoted daddy and always sits on the babies and keeps them warm = ) For those of you who don't know, 7 is VERY large litter in terms of gerbils (10 is the max I've ever heard of, from a reliable source), especially for new mothers, who usually start out with 2-4, unless they're already 6 or 7 months old.

Their Litters:

Litter #1 - 4/2/98
Litter #2 - 5/21/98
Litter #3 - 7/9/98
Litter #4 - 9/27/98
Litter #5 - 10/22/98 - fostered
Litter #6 - 11/21/98
Litter #7- 1/8/99 - died
Litter #8 - 2/5/99

New....grandparents?!

Yes, it's hard to believe my "babies" are so old now! When they were a mere 11 months old, they became grandparents of 5 squeaky pups in Maryland. Their grandkids' mum is Jenevieve (of The Kindred Circle) a champagne, and the dad was their son-in-law Locke, a red fox. I can't wait to see the babies! (it should be mentioned that Eve & Reilly were actually probably grandparents at about 7 months old, but the owner of that particular gerbie, Clancy or Jesse from their first litter, has never emailed me to let me know when the little ones were born, how many there were, or anything =(). Also, they have grandkids in Nevada from their daughter Everleigh (schimmel) and her burmese mate. They were all black! That means Eve and Reilly are both *a.

The Grandkids!

When Eve & Reilly were just about a year old, they became GREAT-grandparents, through their nutmeg pied daughter Lilly and her lilac mate. A nutmeg male was born!

Does he look like a great-grandpa to you?

Of genetics & babies

Their genes are *aPPe^fe^fCCGG and *aPPe^fe^fCCGGSpsp (so far as I know) respectively. They give me schimmel and champagne. Their babies look like this:

Updates:

Eve is due on: early January

12/16/98 - Happy 1st birthday Eve & Reilly!

11/21/98 - Eve had sextuplets for her 6th litter, what a good girl!

10/31/98 - A couple days ago Eve & Reilly became grandparents! Their daughter Jenevieve had 5 pups!

10/25/98 - Eve had twins again today, but one died so the other (Callyr) was fostered to Fox Litter #3.

9/27/98 - Eve had twins today!

7/10/98 - Eve had quadrupelts last night!

5/21/98 - Eve had twins today!

4/2/98 - Eve had seven babies today!!

3/25/98 - She is DEFINITELY expecting! 8 more days and there will be little Reillys everywhere.

3/22/98 - Hmm it's been 14 days . . . should I trust her? Hmmm not quite yet, since you never know . . .

3/9/98 - Heh well looks as if I'm one step ahead of them now. Last night, 13 days later, Eve & Reilly . . . yep, mated again. Since it took 13 days, I'm assuming she's not fully mature yet.

3/7/98 - Well, if Eve is indeed pregnant, it's been 12 days, that's halfway through. However, I do have my doubts, and I guess only time will tell. Well, 13 more days will tell.

3/1/98 - Grrr has it only been 6 days? Well in about 10 days we'll be sure whether or not something's coming. Good luck Eve!

2/23/98 - their first litter may only be 25 days away! Eve is due on March 20th.

Reilly and I, discussing names for his babies ;)

The genealogy of their pups:

TDC's = The Dani Clan's (mine). Owned by me, but not necessarily bred by me. Mindy's = Mindy Arledge's, owned by her but not necessarily bred by her. Doug's = Doug White's.