Yes is the short answer – gerbils can eat any type of strawberries going – and they can eat it as often as any other fresh fruit or vegetable – they are totally safe for gerbils in gerbil-sized doses.
Strawberries are a common summer fruit in our homes and so are more likely to be offered as a treat in hot weather – especially as most humans don’t eat the nubbin at the end where the stalk come out – perfect for a cute gerbil-sized portion.
They are sometimes found in gerbil treats as something different – often not just the fruit itself. Sometimes they are slices or just tiny cubes. It is sometimes tempting to give a whole one to your gerbils as they just look so goooooood…
Strawberry Nutrition Facts:
Strawberries themselves are a fruit – botanically not a berry I am told if you are fussy about these things – but an ‘aggregate accessory fruit’ of all things? Rather dull compared to the fruits themselves?
The plant itself is a low-lying ground loving plant with huge leaves and runners with cloned new baby plants on the ends. Most of the commercial strawberries you find in stores today belong to the family Fragaria and are grown all over the world in temperate – and the plants can grow in colder temperatures and out of season if protected from extreme weather.
They are high in quite a few nutrients – the most well known being Vitamin C – but they also contain other vitamins and manganese and a whole host of healthy phytochemicals – great news for us too is that they are good for your heart…
However, just like most brightly coloured fruits and vegetables – most of the calories come as sugar. Boo.
You can find large or small strawberries for sale – the size doesn’t matter really – they are all just as sweet and tasty as each other..
Ways Gerbils Can Eat Strawberries:
There are several different ways to eat a strawberry – and as with all foods, they contain different things, so below is a quick breakdown of the most common ways.
Fresh Strawberries – this is the most obvious way to eat a strawberry is just how it comes off the plant (or out the punnet). Just give your gerbils either the stalk part, a slice or the whole thing if it is a small one. It is quite mushy and everything sticks to it real fast – 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.
Dried Strawberry Pieces – this is found less often – but as long as they haven’t been super-sweetened for us humans – they should be fine as a one-off treat.
Dehydrated Strawberries – Too tasty! 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 by shrinking the nutrients down to a smaller piece you are increasing that amount you are giving your gerbils.
The nutrients and sugars in a gerbil-sized portion of fresh strawberry is much less than a gerbil-sized portion of dehydrated strawberry…
Strawberry Jam – No. Please don’t give your gerbils strawberries that have been in a jam or baked pudding as they will no doubt be FULL of sugar or soaked in acids.
Basically – to preserve food – you either need to dry it (see above); preserve it in salt (not very tasty for summer fruits but great for cheese) or preserve it in SUGAR – and this is what happens to strawberries. You have to add basically an equal amount of sugar to strawberries to make preserves – and add pectin or lemon juice to it as well. All very ‘not gerbil’.
Fresh or nothing methinks!
Can Gerbils Eat Other Strawberry 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 part of a strawberry plant that you could find and whether they are safe or not.
Strawberry Skins – these are part of the fruit – you can’t avoid it.
Strawberry Stalks – totally safe – your gerbils might eat more of the flesh – but many gerbil just love the stalk and leaflets surrounding it.
Strawberry Plant Leaves – these are well loved in my house. I grow my own strawberries – and they often get a whole fresh leaf brought home for them from the allotment – which they all just LOVE… (no chemicals on my plot)
Strawberry Seeds – the seeds are on the outside of the strawberry (see image above) – and – interesting botanical fact – without the seeds on the outside – strawberries don’t go red! Anyway, these seeds are totally safe to eat for us and our gerbils.
Strawberry Plant Flowers – the flowers are very blossom-like and although us humans can eat them – I can’t find anything for sure to say that gerbils can. If you do offer them – just make sure that the field or plot you get them from hasn’t been sprayed with commercial chemicals.
And also – eating the blossom too early could prevent your fruit actually getting pollinated – so just take on petal from each plant…
Wild Strawberries – wild strawberries are delightful – and I also grow them on my allotment too. The fruits from these plants might be not as sweet for us humans – but they are PERFECT gerbil size – and mine love them. So it saves me cutting my larger ones up AND looks adorably cute to see a gerbil holding a whole strawberry!
Wash if collecting yours from the woods or meadows near you – or maybe get a runner cut from a friends plants and grow your own at home for next summer?
Photo by kahvikisu 