Can Gerbils Eat Bread?
Yes is the short answer – gerbils can eat white, brown, granary and seeded bread as often as any other treat you may offer – they are all totally safe for gerbils in gerbil-sized doses.
Bread is always in our homes and so is more likely to be offered as a treat – especially as most people have it either super fresh or going stale!
Stale bread hasn’t ‘gone off’ so to speak, and can be warmed in the microwave or oven – or even baked again to bring it back to health. Only when bread has gone mouldy or smells ‘a bit tangy’ would it be best not to give it to your gerbils.
Bread Nutrition Facts:
Bread is so variable these days that there is no specific definition of it other than a grain-based product cooked in an oven. It can be made from many different grains and parts of grains, as well as being natural or less so.
Bread made commercially for humans has to have certain vitamins or other ingredients added to it by law to makes sure that we humans are all healthy. However, bread made commercially also as the downside of having been made with added ingredients to make it last as long as possible as well as added ingredients to make it taste nicer – usually with some type of sugar added.
Homemade bread may well have none of these added to it and so may well be a better choice for you AND your gerbils if you have the time and resources to make it – however, commercial bread is still fine if only given sparingly anyway – so it really doesn’t matter that much.
Bread can contain seeds or whole-grains – even a coating of flour – all totally safe for gerbils.
Can They Eat It Cooked Too?
Of course they can. It is basically toast.
Toasted bread is fine for gerbils to eat and adds a bit of crunch to their treat – they seem to love it too. Mind you – watch what you had on your own toast if you are sharing – as many sweetened toppings might have too many calories in them for a tiny one.
Butter or spread on toast isn’t the end of the word if only a really tiny amount.
When can they NOT eat Bread?
There are however, certain times when bread might not be the most suitable treat you could offer your gerbils, even the most healthy foods have their best and worst moments after all.
When you wouldn’t eat it yourself – When bread is mouldy or has been contaminated or possibly contaminated with something – don’t give it to your gerbils. Just like humans, their little digestive systems can only cope with so much before it stops working effectively.
And why would you risk it when there are plenty of ‘safe’ things in your home and garden that you could give instead?
Also – not all bread is equal! Tomato bread, onion bread, garlic bread and other such wonderful creations that us humans have contrived to make eating it more fun aren’t just bread.
I hope your ears pricked up at the the words ‘tomato’, ‘onion’ and ‘garlic’ – all of which are on the non-safe food list for gerbils. They contain ingredients that are known to be biologically detrimental even in small dose (as gerbils are small too of course).
These ingredients may well not instantly harm your gerbil in small amounts of course, but why offer them if you don’t have to? However the choice, as always, is up to you.
Basically, by avoiding these breads completely you are doing your gerbils a big favour – in the same way that avoiding sitting next to an exhaust pipe is good for you. Why would you risk anything so obvious?
And just picking out the bits without the other ingredients in them isn’t good enough to be 100% if you want to err on the side of caution for your pets – after all – just like picking off the ham from a Hawaiian pizza doesn’t make it vegetarian.