 | Posted by: | monica, monica_r76@hotmail.com | | Subject: | HELP BABYGLIDERS GONE! | | When: | 3:31 PM, 14 Jan 2001 | | IP: | 209.245.237.170 |
My babygliders were oop on Jan 9, I checked in the pouch to make sure they were ok,and they were there alive and moving around they were even crying. Well I did not check on them again, because I wanted to wait a week, before I handled them. So last night I waited for the parents to start eating so I could sneak the pouch out. Well they were gone, I checked mom and they were not in her pouch. What happened, do glider parents eat their young when the know babies are not healthy. I cleaned out their cage just right now, and I found something that looked like it could be bones, Please help me, what did I do wrong.
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| Posted by: | KarenE, KarenElfrank@aol.com | | Subject: | Possible Calcium Deficiency | | When: | 1:45 PM, 14 Jan 2001 | | IP: | 152.163.197.51 |
Unfortunately, glider parents do sometimes kill and eat their young. Usually it is due to a calcium deficiency in their diet, but it can also be due to other problems which have nothing to do with diet. Without knowing what you are feeding, it would be difficult to speculate as to why this happened.
I am so very sorry this has happened. Giving us more information about their diet might enable someone to give you some sort of an answer.
| Posted by: | Jasmine, Spookie_Girl@yahoo.com | | Subject: | Diet and Stress | | When: | 11:23 AM, 16 Jan 2001 | | IP: | 63.78.31.223 |
Yes, they can eat their babies. It's really uncommon, though, especially when the joeys are OOP. Cannibalism mostly diet-related. You must make sure the mother is getting extra protein and calcium. Feed her lots of insects (mealworms and crickets), and dust her food with RepCal (both of them need RepCal, anyhow).
Sometimes stress is a factor, too. If this was a first litter, it's very possible that the parents were more sensitive to stress than they will be later. First-time parents tend to have more problems than experienced ones. I'm not sure how you checked the mom's pouch (you didn't describe whether or not you physically touched it), but you should never manipulate/open a female's pouch. Not only can this traumatize the female, but it can cause physical damage to the pouch (a tear) or disrupt the bacteria in it (there's special bacteria that makes oxygen so the babies can breath). You should always wait until a baby fully comes out on its own before handling it.
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