Gizzynator, yes we have observed that higher-protein diets help. There are a lot of them out there. None have any real scientific proof. The LGRS diet has only anectdotal proof. We have observed an uptick in health and agility from all gliders who have used this diet. Our veterinarian refers people to us when they have questions on glider diet. She is a triple-degreed vet who is expert on sugar gliders and we have presented the diet to her and gotten good feedback on it.
Disclaimer I am not interested in comparing our diet to all the others out there nor am I interested in getting a diet war going on this thread. But since there is an interest in high-protien diets, I will offer here what we feed. We are not pushing this on anyone and we have no commercial stake in this. It's just what we feed the 70+ animals here and it works and all the folks who adopt from us use it. It's up to you. You should always consult your vet first before changing a pet's diet. A good relationship with a qualified vet is really an important "ingredient" before accepting our advice. We are not asking for a diet posse roundup so please don't start one.
Background of LGRS diet The LGRS diet is based loosely on the so-called HPW diet but we have made significant changes. The HPW diet uses the very expensive Passwell's High Protein Womberoo powder. A much cheaper alternative to that we found is the Trader Darwin's Vanilla Flavored Soy Protein powder. You can get that at Trader Joe's. There may also be some other good substitutes, but we settled on that one. It is about one tenth the cost of the Womberoo. That said, the powder is only a tiny portion of the entire diet.
Our analysis showed that unless you go out of your way to ensure the proper calcium:phosphorus ratios were being taken care of on the compote side, the soup itself was lacking. But it was the diet, out of all of them from BML, Toronga Zoo, Healesville, PWL, etc. etc. etc. that our gliders responded well to. So over time, we made our own changes to it based on conferences with our vet and a lot of research. Notably, the compote side of the equation is where a lot of the protein is. After comitting to a few month's worth of soup per batch, the compote is the part that is easy to change each day to suit your gliders' weight and exercise regimen.
In our studies, we have read numerous university texts on the subject of metabolic uptake of possums. One thing most researchers and field workers agree with is that protein is not available to gliders in abundance year-round. Most of the time they subsist on nectars, sap, and pollen. It is only part of the year that insects are in ready supply and that's where a lot of their protein intake comes from. Not suprisingly it is those times of the year when gliders conceive and bear young. That is when protein is available. So it stands to reason when they are in captivity we should feed them protein year-round. Consider also that gliders only live three or four years in the wild, so we don't want to exactly mimic what they eat in the wild. If you want a pet that only lives for three years, get a hamster.
The LGRS high protein diet consists of two separate things: The soup and the compote. Here are some simple instructions...
LGRS High Protein Soup - part of a good diet for suggies A batch of soup will last two or three gliders for months and one batch makes between 7 to 8 cups. You can freeze this in ice cube trays and pop them out one cube for each glider and let it thaw before serving.
Of course this all depends on the amount of waste your gliders create. Some gliders like to play with their food and this uses up more. Some gliders are very careful with their food and carefully consume it without making a mess or wasting any of it.
You will need a blender.
1. Start with two to three cups of papaya juice and orange juice. Naked brand "mighty mango" is good because it has papaya in it. (Papaya and Orange are good because they offset the upside-down CA:PH ratios of most fruits and veggies.)
2. Scramble 4 large eggs.
3. Blend the eggs, juice and 1/4 cup of High Protein soy powder (Trader Darwin's is our choice) but if you have the money you can use the Passwell High Protein Womberoo.
4. Blend in 32 oz. of low-fat plain yogurt.
5. In a dry blender or bullet, blend 2 tablespoons of granulated bee pollen and three tablespoons of dehydrated, powdered fly pupae. (You can get the dehydrated, powdered fly pupae from Oregon Feeder Insects
www.oregonfeederinsects.com
you can get bee pollen at BulkFoods.com
www.bulkfoods.com
)
6. Blend in to the mixture 1 1/2 cups of warmed-up FILTERED (not raw, not comb, not unfiltered) honey and then add the pollen/pupae mixture.
7. Optionally you can sneak in a few fruits and veggies they hate but that you want them to metablolize.
8. Check the consistency. It should be just less the thickness of an orange smoothie. If it is the thickness of a milk shake, add juice or water to thin it out.
You can pour the resulting "soup" into ice cube trays and then pop the frozen cubes into freezer bags for easier storage. You can also pour the soup into small plastic drink bottles. Use containers equal in size to two or three day's worth of soup - so you can move them from the freezer to the fridge in 2-3 day's worth of quantity.
LGRS Compote Part - part of a good diet for suggies Rotate a variety of fruits and veggies along with some animal-based protein in your compote. For example, you can offer:
Monday: A mix of corn (small amt), raspberries, tomato along with some chopped turkey.
Tuesday: cooked, chopped hamburger (drained of fat) along with a plop of cottage cheese, peas and a slice of orange.
Wednesday: Chopped baked chicken, diced mango, carrot and blueberries
Thursday: Scrambled egg, brocolli, peas, and a peice of low fat cheese
Friday: Diced chicken, edamame beans, apple, and papaya (3x as much as beans)
Saturday: Chopped turkey, tomato, orange, corn (much less corn than the other stuff)
Sunday: Chopped hamburger (drained of fat), plop of yogurt, blackberry, melon
So long as you have a good balance, you can get real creative here. These are just examples. The clue here is to try to achieve a 2:1 Ca:Ph ratio. You can refer to the gliderpedia to look up ratios for just about any food:
http://www.sugarglider.com/nutrition/search.asp
Note also that dark leafy veggies like spinach for example are high in oxalates. Oxalitic acid binds to calcium and keeps it from being absorbed. So if the food is high in oxalates don't figure on it being any good in the calcium dept. You can still offer foods high in oxalates for their other ingredients.
The soup is already pretty balanced and since it is sweet most gliders are sure to eat it. But the compote is important because it offers variety.
You can also feed them "treats" two to three times a week. These would be yogurt drops (really candy so go easy on them), mealworms, and crickets.
Quantities Each suggie should be offered two tablespoons of soup and two tablespoons of compote each night. It is OK to feed them more if they finish it so long as they are getting exercise. If you don't get them out of the cage, they will get fat on this diet. So you have to get them out of the cage and let them run around each night. Otherwise, you will need to cut back on the worms (high in fat) and cut back on the animal protein. There is still plenty of protein in the egg, the pollen, and the fly pupae.
About Pellets Yes you can still put pellets in their cage as a staple. After you get them on this diet, they will probably just use the pellets to scrape their teeth on or throw at each other. Watch how those pellets just sit there after you start feeding them "real" food...
No Axe To Grind - No Posse Needed LGRS has no axe to grind. We have no diet posse. Nor do we encourage one. There is no commercial tie-in linked to this diet and the sale of anything. It is just what we feed and it seems to work for us. Animals that come in malnourished and skinny and with ratty fur transform usually into perky, filled-out, shiny-furred, beautiful grey suggies within a few months. That's it. That's all the proof we have. The diet is based on basic diet principles, ratios, and common sense.
We don't have the money to get the diet into a university study. We looked into it. We need a grant for that. We are just a struggling rescue operation so we are not flush with all kinds of cash to run off and do scientific studies to prove anything to anyone just now. We spend thousands each month keeping the rescue running and the money just goes to operations right now. If someone wants to belly up with money to do a diet study, we will gladly take that money and put it to use. Otherwise, it won't happen.
We are not looking to start a diet war. If you like what you feed your animals and they are healthy and your vet says they are fine and to just keep feeding them what you are feeding them - that's fine with us. If you are part of someone's diet posse and you want to fight - ok you win and we forfeit the fight because we are too busy saving animals to fight with you. OK that's it - that's all the disclamers and "we don't want to fight with anyone over diet" rhetoric I can muster.
Cheers, Ed @ LGRS
P.S. Gizzynator and other folks who are kinda new to this don't think I am being paranoid about this diet thing. It has a tendency to get weird. All I can tell you is we use this and it works and we have healthier animals in our rescue than a lot of pets out there. Anyone is free to come visit us to find out. You can volunteer while you are here and clean cages and prepare and serve food for the suggies if you want to. You can interact with the animals in our play room. You can report your findings to others. We have an open door policy at LGRS and we love visitors. 
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