Yes is the short answer – gerbil can eat yellow or brown bananas as often as any other fresh fruit or vegetable – they are totally safe for gerbils in gerbil-sized doses either raw or cooked.
Bananas are a common fruit in our homes and so are more likely to be offered as a treat – especially as most humans don’t eat the nubbin at the end – perfect for a gerbil-sized portion.
They are even found in some gerbil foods as standard – in the form of baked chips. Sometimes they are whole slices, so I break them down into smaller pieces to spread out the yumminess. These are chips are often the first thing they run off with when you put in the fresh food – so they are obviously very tasty for gerbils.
Banana Nutrition Facts:
Bananas themselves are a fruit – botanically a berry I am told if you are fussy about these things. The plant itself is a herb – but don’t be thinking of the scented culinary herbs such as basil and parsley for this – it is just the shortened form of the word herbaceous (meaning a non-woody plant). Most edible bananas you find in stores belong to the genus Musa and are grown all over the world in tropical climates – and the plants can grow in colder temperatures if protected from extreme weather.
They are high in quite a few nutrients – the most well known being potassium – but they also contain vitamin B6, B7, and C, magnesium, copper and fibre – great news for us too.
However, most of the calories from bananas is as fructose – sugar. The browner the fruit – the greater the sugar content (that is why hard or green bananas don’t taste as nice as soft ones). Luckily for gerbils they only get a small amount anyway.
You can find large green bananas in stores – which are actually plantains and are for cooking. Green in bananas means too much starch (and a chemical to stop these starches turning into sugars) so don’t eat green bananas raw (either normal bananas or plantains).
Ways Gerbils Can Eat Bananas:
There are several different ways to eat a banana – and these are sometimes different nutrients-wise – as with all foods, so below is a quick breakdown of the most common ways.
Fresh Banana Flesh – this is the most obvious way to feed bananas – as it is one of the ways we eat them. Just break or cut off a slice and give to your clan. It is quite mushy and goes black quickly – so perhaps feed out in the run or in small pieces on a platform so making it easier to retrieve and clean where it was left after eating.
Cooked Banana – as with above this is totally acceptable for gerbils if cooked alone.
Dried Banana Chips – this is the way bananas are found in some pet foods – like Johnson’s Hamster & Gerbil Mix (a huge favourite with my clan). These are slices or chips of banana that have been baked in an oven and so are hard but brittle. Be careful where you source your banana chips as some are baked in an oven with lemon juice (to stop them going black) but others are baked or fried in various types of sugars to make them taste nice (not good for your gerbils (or you really)). You can make your own banana chips at home – but it can be quite hard to get them right.
Photo by Rameshng
Dried or Dehydrated Bananas – these are absolutely yummy and easy to make. However, as you are reducing their size (taking out the water of which they are more than 60%) – you are increasing their nutrients and sugars as a percentage. So what used to be contained in the size of one normal banana is now contained in something that is about a third of the size of a banana – so giving your gerbil a gerbil-sized portion now could be too much sugar and nutrients.
Can Gerbils Eat Other Banana Parts?
It isn’t just the fruity flesh that gerbils can eat – or that are available – so here is a quick rundown of all the other parts of a banana plant that you could find and whether they are safe or not.
Banana Skins – these are actually edible. However, they are pretty unpleasant to human taste buds – so it’s a gamble to see if your gerbils like them? Make sure you fully wash the skins (especially if commercially grown) and offer them when they are nearer their brown stage, as like with the flesh – this is when they are sweeter. You can eat them yourself of course too, cooked in with soups, cakes and smoothies – don’t just let your gerbils have all the fun!
Banana Leaves – these look great as plates! Banana leaves are not edible by humans (although they are used in cooking as they give off a great taste to most meals) so I would assume that the same would be true for our gerbils. I can’t find any evidence anywhere to say either way whether gerbils can eat banana plant leaves – so I would say no (for now).
Banana Wood and Bark – actually, there is no such thing. Banana plants are herbaceous which means that they are plants which do not form a woody stem. Each leaf of a banana plant forms part of the stem when it grows and so they look like trees from a distance, but they are just very stiff leaf stalks all growing from a single point.
Banana Pips or Seeds – well, our edible bananas from the store don’t have pips or seeds. Banana plants need to be propagated vegetatively – not through seeds. Basically, all our store-bought bananas are from clones.
Banana Plant Flowers – these do exist (as with all fruits) – however, I can’t find any evidence on whether they are edible or not. Many blossoms/flowers are edible – like courgette flowers – but I haven’t found anything either way for banana flowers.
