Sugar Glider advice

[farmchick897]

My daughter bought two orphan 8 week old sugar glider sisters. We were told to feed fresh fruits, veggies, chicken.. but any advice on what we need for proper care would be appreciated.

 

[Akane]

Fitting all the proper diet information and care for a glider in a post would take me hours.

http://www.glidercentral.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php -currently down for some reason but one of the best and biggest forums with a section on diet.

http://www.sweet-sugar-gliders.com/

http://www.suzsugargliders.com/

We feed HPW
http://www.sweet-sugar-gliders.com/sugar-glider-hpw-diet-high-protein-wombaroo-recipe.html and get the powder off sweet sugar gliders and the rest at the store. Bee pollen can be found in a huge container at gnc or other vitamin/health stores. We also make some batches with unsweetened fruit juice for variety.

 

[boykin2010]

there is certain feed you can buy for them off the internet.

 

[Akane]

No commercial food found on the internet or off is suitable without feeding a wide variety of fruits and vegetables along with usually a nectar substitute. Gliders are not designed for dry foods. Their lifespan has been proven to be shorter and with more health issues than gliders fed on one of the approved diets. Any group or individual that tells you they can survive fine on commercial food with little else is brainwashed by the big millbreeders. The closest you can get is the suncoast diet with their hard or semi-moist pellets (far superior to "glider chow" sold by perfect pocket pets who causes many of these myths) but the suncoast diet actually is one of the most complicated diets out there because it requires so many fresh foods as well as some vitamins/minerals to be added without a strict list to follow. You have to know what you are feeding and sometimes calculate the numbers and ratios. BML is actually considered one of the easiest diets since it has a laid out plan to follow every day. Like hpw and some of the others you mix up a liquid part and freeze it then feed a set amount a day with very specific fruits and veggies so no research beyond reading the recipe is required. Some people have made up similar lists for HPW but that diet is not designed to have a really restrictive feeding list and relies more on the owner doing enough research to find fruits and veggies that make the right ratios.

 

[farmchick897]

thanks, I've been doing some reading.. my eyes hurt.

Seems like there are hundred ways to feed a sugar glider.

Back to reading!

 

[TeamChaos]

I had a glider rescue many years ago, I fed a modified leadbeaters diet.... looks similar to http://www.angelfire.com/nb/sugarglider/leadbeat.html
. Little ones will have some special nutritional concerns since they aren't able to nurse. How are they doing with eating and drinking?
Were you prepared for gliders or are these completely out of the blue? I'm glad to help however i can.

 

[farmchick897]

Well, my 12 year old animal loving daughter has been wanting to get them for awhile. She has been researching them online for about 6 months now. The research has lead to many mixed messages, you can find as many people telling you they are great pets as you can that say they are hard to keep, bite hard and horrible pets... and you can find just as many different diets.

So, she found these two and I'm willing to give it a go. Knowing very well that I could end up taking care of them.

Which leads me to asking advice now so we start off on the right foot and make sure the diet is right. I have meal worms and vitamin supplement ordered and being shipped.

Does the diet have to be so controlled or can you offer a large selection of variety and they pick and choose what works?
Also, are there any toxic foods that are to be avoided?

The breeder told us to give them a little of what you have for dinner each night, veggies, fruit and chicken, no beef? The check-out lady at Walmart told me not to feed them from your hand it will lead to biting... The pet store people told us they stink and make horrible pets.

 

[TeamChaos]

Awww, well you hit on a lot of issues that led to gliders being surrendered to me- biting, smells and involved care. I had them for years when I lived in FL and really enjoyed my time with the colony. They are brave little creatures with clever personalities and fascinating habits- they are used to being at the top of their world (literally, the are pretty much kings of the canopy) so you'll get bad results if you try to bully them and my biggest hint on the scent situation is never to clean their cage completely- they will stink things up twice as bad if they can't smell themselves, ha ha ha. But your babies are too small for that to be a concern right now. They do recognize the world by smell and sound more than sight, so be quiet and calm in dealing with them and let them get used to your smell (my gliders spent a lot of time in pouches and pockets on my body; even before I had face time with the new ones, I worked on getting them used to my smell and sound).
What kind of cage do you have them in right now? Also, do you a pocket for them to sleep in during the day? I will reply more this evening, but I just wanted to get an idea of how things are set up.

 

[salunra]

Sugar gliders are adorable.... but they take work and dedication. Especially as they are nocturnal.

They need a nest pouch of some sort to sleep in and a regulated diet to make sure that they are getting the right calcium to phosphorous ratio. You cannot just free feed them otherwise they will eat all the proteins (especially bugs) and ignore the rest of their food. In the wild they live on tree sap and bugs. Tree sap is always available, bugs are not. So they go after bugs before anything else.

They do have an odor. Males more so than females. I am not sure if you mentioned the sex of your gliders, but two males will usually fight. And if you have one of each you will end up with babies if you do not neuter the male. So, if you have anything other than two females you will want to look into having the boy/s fixed.

For bonding with them if you have a pouch, put them in the pouch and carry it around during the day so that they get used to your scent. Also put a scrap of cloth that has your scent on it in their pouch so that they have it close all the time.

My male was a wreck when I got him. He was a rescue and malnourished. It took a long time to get his diet right and get him healthy again. And even longer to get him to be at all social. We got a little girl as a friend for him since they should not be kept alone. She was the cutest, sweetest little girl. She NEVER made that sugar glider crabby noise and would just curl up in your hand.

The biggest trouble I had with them is the pee almost constantly. And little hamster poops all the time. I ended up with a touch allergy, so when they would climb/pee on me I would end up with red marks where they climbed on me

so ours we rehomed ours.

Good luck and I hope you enjoy them. Like all exotics, they take a little special care, but they are certainly cute.

 

[farmchick897]

We were told they are both females, and here is the cage setup. I have a sun conure and he had two cages, but he's only been in this one maybe two times. We have a pouch ordered, so for now we are using knit cap tucked around the food dish swing out door. We put a lot of ropes and toys in the cage, seems like their little toe nails get caught up easily, is this a concern or do they just unstick them like a cat might? So, you take all the recommended foods and blend them up so they are forced to eat a varied diet? I ordered some type of baby premium glider food online, was this not good? I ordered some vitamin stuff too. Tonight they got, scrambled egg, honey/greek yogurt mix, broccoli, cauliflower, carrot and apple cut up in pieces. They like the yogurt/honey.