In Reply to: Oh yeah 1 more q? posted by Bourbon on May 17, 2000 at 05:55:09:

I am feeding her the modified Leadbeater's Mix recipe, frozen. She eats about a teaspoon per day. I also give her seedless red grapes, monkey biscuits, some of the "balanced diet" pellets the breeder gave us, sometimes apples, pear.. apple juice, guava juice, water. She also loves avocado, but I give it to her in very small doses. She hardly eats everything I give her and I always make sure the fruit doesn't get too dried out or the water stale. She is getting into the habit of waking up to play at around 8am, and she doesn't really get up at any other time on a consistant basis. Generally we just take her out of her cage, asleep or no, to pocket train her. I draped a shirt I'd been wearing over her cage and this encouraged her to climb around a bit, but she doesn't explore much other than that. She seems afraid to leave her house when we're awake. There is the possibility that she doesn't like one or all of several elements in her surroundings.. She is in the same room as a home theater system, complete with subwoofer, a stairmaster, a microwave, sink, air purifier and, including a laptop, three computers. I understand that the low-grade droning noise may scare her, but I want her to be used to these conditions if she's to be our pet. She doesn't seem to be disturbed by any of them when she's in my hand or asleep in my pocket, but for whatever reason she won't leave her nesting box and explore unless we're sound asleep and the lights are out. She is hesitant to climb onto my hand, so I leave it there patiently or try to coax her out with a treat. The handkerchiefs we use for her bedding are almost always worn against our bodies for several hours before they're put in her cage, but the ladders and branches in there don't smell like us.
Maggie has several types of stools that we've seen. Firstly there are the stools that look much like human feces. Long and well shaped. Sometime it looks like pudding and is very soft. Whatever the case, she goes a lot. Proportionally, I'd say she produces 4 times what a human would. Generally, since the Q-Tip method has only once successfully worked (and that was only for urination), we take her out of her cage and set her on a paper towel with a grape, biscuit, or her leadbeater's. We stand close by and even pet her while she eats and we wait for her to eliminate waste, which she will do while eating, if at all. Sometimes she will go willingly. In this case, we let her eat what she chooses and let her climb on us. However, we are hesitant to let her climb if we do not see her move her bowels, because when that's the case she almost always goes on us the second she finds a secure foothold on our clothes or skin. If we set her down and she does not go to the bathroom or does not scrabble after us in search of a place to climb on, the will run across the counter and climb the outside of her cage. We interpret this as a sign she doesn't want to come out and be sociable, so we put her back in the cage with fresh water and food.

Yes, I love my glider. I will make an apointment for the vet today if you still think it's wise (she's never seen a vet, and I'd have to find one first). Otherwise, please give any other suggestions you can think of.
Thanks, Bourbon.

Follow Ups:

• Kims got a few things to add too Kim 10:41:06 05/17/2000 (1)
  • I agree... Bourbon 13:16:04 05/17/2000 (0)