Respitory problems

The most common one I see. It mostly is a reaction to there bedding, pine or cedar. Mostly in elderly and young pups.  Thy symptoms that are recognized is clicking, and chills. They best way I found to treat it is by buying Ornacyclene ( usually used for birds) and adding a half of a pill to there water bottle. You can find ornacyclene in most pet stores.

Seizures

Sometimes placing your gerbil in a new place can cause a seizure. It looks as if your gerbil has frozen and twitches a little bit. If it had a mild seizure let it rest and it should be fine in a few minutes, and keep it warm, but in severe seizures most gerbils don't make it. Which is very upsetting when you come to see that you gerbil mysteriously died.

Red Nose

Red nose accompied by fur lose around the nose is caused usually the bedding you use.  Gerbils should not be placed on Pine or cedar,  I am a believer that pine kills! If you need more convincing visit here. I would immediately  switch to aspen or carefresh, and put triple antibiotic cream on there noise to reduce the swelling and irritation. I can not stress this enough, Pine and Cedar is horrible to your gerbil and any other pet for that matter! Red nose is also a sign of your gerbil rubbing his/her nose on her cage, usually happens in a wire cage which gerbils are easily annoyed by. Place your gerbil in a glass aquarium with a mesh lid.

But the best bedding you can actually buy for your gerbil is sand. It is what they live on in the wild. They love digging and rolling around in it. Plus a bag of kid's play box sand only cost around $2.00. For a 10 lb bag, but a pain to clean up after. You can buy a bowl and add some sand and let your gerbil play and roll in that.

Diareha/tyzzer's disease

Gerbil's can catch tyzzer's disease, which usually results in death if not treated ASAP!

Usually symptoms are a wet bottom, chills, and they seem to just sit, it seems as if there motionless. I would treat them with ornacyclene or dri tail, right in there water or threw a eye dropper, to make sure they get the medicine.

Illnesses