Can Gerbils Eat Lettuce?

Lettuce is a very prominent staple in the diets of many different kinds of people! This diverse vegetable is absolutely packed with nutrients, so it’s clear why it’s such a popular choice. Romaine lettuce contains fiber, manganese, potassium, iron, biotin, copper, and vitamins B1 and C. With all of the health benefits that come with lettuce, you may be wondering: Can gerbils eat lettuce?

Due to a gerbil’s fine-tuned body, gerbils can eat certain kinds of lettuce in small amounts. Lettuce contains large amounts of water, so anything more than a little bit could be potentially dangerous or even fatal. 

What Do Gerbils Eat In The Wild?

In order to better understand whether or not lettuce is safe for gerbils to eat, it first helps to know what they would eat in the wild. Because of the fact that gerbils have only been kept as pets for a short time, they’ve been roaming free throughout Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia for thousands of years! During this time, gerbils’s digestive systems have adapted to efficiently digest and process the food that they most commonly eat.

This is what makes it so important to match your gerbil’s diet to the diet that they would have in the wild — it’s what their bodies are designed for!

Gerbils are classified as omnivores, but they have a diet that very closely resembled that of an herbivore. This means that gerbils can and do eat a wide variety of different foods, but the majority of their diet consists of a mixture of plant matter. Because of this, gerbils get all of their essential nutrients through a mixture of grains, fruits, and vegetables.

Gerbils scavenge for their food in the wild, resulting in them eating basically anything that they find. While the specific diet of a gerbil varies depending on its location, the same general foods are eaten. The staple foods of a gerbil’s diet are seeds, roots, bulbs, insects, grasses, fruits, nuts, and bird eggs.

Health Benefits & Dangers Of Lettuce

After learning about what gerbils naturally eat in the wild, it may seem obvious that gerbils can eat lettuce. Although they would rarely eat lettuce itself, gerbils frequently eat other vegetables that have similar properties.

A characteristic of a gerbil’s diet that you may have noticed is that it’s very dry. Not a lot of foods that are eaten by gerbils contain a lot of water. Gerbils only drink about 4ml of water per day, which is an amount that can easily be surpassed with a few pieces of very watery fruits or vegetables. Unfortunately, lettuce is one of those “high water content” vegetables.

Quite a few problems can arise in gerbils that take in too much water. Too much water can dilute the sodium and electrolytes in a gerbil’s body, robbing them of essential nutrients and resulting in hyponatremia. Additionally, large amounts of water causes diarrhea, which itself can cause dehydration and extreme intestinal distress.

Both of these scenarios can result in death, so it’s best that you keep your gerbil’s water consumption in check.

Despite those downsides, lettuce still makes for a tasty little treat for your gerbils occasionally. Gerbils love the taste of lettuce, and the texture is something that you don’t get from many other fruits and vegetables. In addition to this, lettuce still contains some good nutrients that could benefit gerbils.

How To Properly Feed Your Gerbil Lettuce

The main reason why lettuce isn’t a great snack for gerbils is because of its high water content. Gerbils only require a small amount of water per day, and lettuce can easily supply gerbils with way more water than they need. So, lettuce is a great snack, but it must be fed in moderation with careful consideration.

Lettuce can be fed at about the same frequency as most fruits — around 2-3 times per week in small amounts. “Small amounts” refers to a small piece of lettuce around the size of a gerbil’s head. These pieces can either be cut up or left whole as lettuce is not a difficult food for gerbils to eat.

Also, never feed a gerbil iceberg lettuce. Its water content is much too high and it contains almost no nutrients. If you’re to feed your gerbil lettuce, romaine is the kind that you should go for.

If you do opt to feed your gerbil lettuce, you need to make sure that their dietary needs are being met first. Although lettuce does have a good amount of nutrients, it’s nowhere near a staple food in a gerbil’s diet.

The most important aspect of a gerbil’s diet is its high-quality seed mixture. This mixture is a staple of their diet because it’s tasty, diverse, and provides gerbils with most of the nutrients that they need. Once you’ve ensured that your gerbil is getting all of the nutrients that they need, then you can focus on supplementing their diet with treats.

Good Lettuce Alternatives For Gerbils

Because of the fact that lettuce contains so much water and doesn’t deliver many nutrients in a gerbil-sized serving, there are better gerbil treats that exist. There is sadly a lack of healthy pre-made gerbil treats, but it’s not the end of the world. The best treats for gerbils are generally fresh fruits and vegetables. Below are some of the most popular fruits and vegetables that gerbil owners love to use as a snack.

  • Apples (without seeds)
  • Bananas
  • Broccoli
  • Carrots
  • Cauliflower
  • Cucumber
  • Strawberries
  • Parsley