Once you arrive home, place the gerbil immediately in the prepared cage and leave it to settle. It will take the gerbil a couple of days to get used to all the new smells and sounds of its new home and will find this time a little stressful. Therefore although you may be tempted to get your gerbil out and play with it, try to resist for the first couple of days so that it can first of all get used to its new surroundings and feel comfortable. This will help to keep its stress to a minimum.
After a couple of days the gerbil will become used to its new home and will generally seem more settled. This is the time when you can start to introduce your gerbil to handling.
| 
