I am fairly certain that my female, Athena, is pregnant.

The opening to her pouch appears to be puffy and more noticeable that it was before I introduced her into the cage with my male, Harpy. Is this a good sign that she is pregnant?

Do I need to provide her with a seperate pouch and/or nesting box for her to comfortably have her joey(s)?

Do I need to separate her from my male altogether?

I know she will need an increase of calcium in her diet, but what other nutrional needs will she have while pregnant/nursing her joeys?

I got her because I wanted to breed, and I have already found loving homes for the joeys when they are ready to leave their mother.

Any extra tips or relevant information would be greatly appreciated! :)

Breeding is huge responsiblity. You really should have done your research first prior to making the decission.
Make sure you have a vet lined up - mating can be nasty causing wounds on the female. Joeys can be canabalized or rejected by the parents - in which case you have to hand raise. This means feedings every hour 24/7 -

Start reading everything on this site http://www.suzsugargliders.com/

And DO NOT separate her from Dad, he will be a large part of the parenting process. What diet are they on now? Typically all you need to do is increase the protein portion of their diet, and supplement them with some good quality, calcium enriched foods, like papaya, yogurt is good (they get more of the nutrients that they need from actual foods than they do from processed supplements if you can get them to eat well).

You need to read Suz's site - linked above - repeatedly.

You should have a rejected joey kit on hand (you can get that from Suz).

You should prepare for the worst, and hope for the best.

How old is your female? How old is the male? Is she a first time momma? All these questions will help me determine your level of preparedness, and potential for problems.

I agree - breeding is a huge undertaking, and I wish you'd asked questions and researched first. Very often, it turns tragic. And gruesome. However, now that you're there, the best thing you can do is read Suz's site, and ask questions of experienced breeders.

I will tell you, however, that if you ask questions that are answered on Suz's site, you'll just be sent back there!

Do you have the gliders already on one of the approved diets? My momma gliders and all the babies have done so well on the HPW diet that I am a huge fan of it. I prefer the hpw original but a lot of people like the easiness of the hpw complete. I also add brisky's milk booster to the mom's diet as soon as I think they may have bred. This helps to boost the milk production and makes healthier babies. The brisky's is also what you need to have on hand if you end up with a rejected joey.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by valkyriemome</i>
<br />I agree - breeding is a huge undertaking, and I wish you'd asked questions and researched first. Very often, it turns tragic. And gruesome. However, now that you're there, the best thing you can do is read Suz's site, and ask questions of experienced breeders.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">

What valkyriemome said, with one addition: the best thing you can do after you read Suz's site and ask questions of experienced breeders is get your male neutered until you have more experience and are more prepared. If you still want to be a breeder when you are fully aware of what that means for you in terms of time, energy, and expense as well as to your gliders in terms of their health, well-being, and happiness, you can always bring in another breeding pair.

Please don't take this as harsh criticism - it's a common mistake people make. i myself ended up with an accidental joey when i took in a rescue pair, and had to deal with joey cannibalization.

I knew this was going to be a big responsibility, and that's why I asked you guys as soon as I suspected she might be pregnant. :) I had already read Suz' section on breeding prior to even getting my sugar gliders, as well as many other websites and articles. I just wanted to get information from more than one source.

Athena and Harpy are both roughly one year old.
I have them on a varied diet of fresh fruits and veggies, plain yogurt, Sunseed Sugar Glider Formula, Calcium powder, and canned crickets.

I alternate between foods, offering fruits and veggies topped with yogurt and a sprinkling of Calcium powder one night and Sunseed Sugar Glider Formula and crickets dusted with Calcium powder the next.

You need to get them on a better diet asap. The pellets are not a good enough source of protein and nutrition, especially for a nursing mother. The Gliderpedia Diet section will give you a good place to look for what will work for you best. In the meantime, try adding some boiled, plain chicken breast or hardboiled or scrambled eggs with no seasoning to increase the protein in their diet. They also need fruits and veggies EVERY night, along with a protein source.

i feel much more confident feeding an established diet. These diets have the correct amount of protein and the proper calcium:phosphorus ratio to keep your gliders healthy, and most of them include recommendations for additions during pregnancy and lactation. If you haven't yet, please take a look at the Diet section of Gliderpedia and consider choosing a well-researched established diet. It's the difference between happy healthy gliders and dead gliders, seriously.

I tried the Leadbeater's Glider Mix for my gliders when I first got them, and they didn't seem to like it that much. They would lap at it for a second, and then they wouldn't touch it for the rest of the night. The feeding dish would still have food left in it the following morning, and I was feeding the recommended serving size per glider.

Would it be significant to just add fresh fruits and vegetables as well as eggs or chicken every night along with the pellets? What other meats could I offer? I have fed them eggs before, I just don't offer them all the time. I always have chicken breasts in the freezer, so I can definitely do that. Could I offer fish? I want to give them a nice, diverse diet.

I NEVER offer them only pellets. I always give them an alternative, because I know the pellets have poor nutritional value by themselves, but they do seem to like it.

I also like to drizzle honey on their fruit, they love it. ;)

I know that a glider's diet can always be improved, and I want my gliders to be as healthy as possible. :)

As far as activity goes, my gliders appear to be healthily playful. I take them out every evening and hold them, pet them, let them ride around on my shoulders, play in my hair, etc. for about three or four hours before I put them back in their cage and feed them. After feeding I usually take them out for about another hour for more play time, then I put them away when I'm getting ready for bed.

but if I can improve anything, of course I am going to. I have only their well-being in mind.

I've PMed you :)

Sprinkling calcium is not a good way to make sure your glider gets the proper amount. Too much can be as harmful as too little. When you sprinkle the calcium on foods it is very likely that you are giving them too much.

For example and entire batch of BML calls for 2 teaspoons of Repcal Calcium. The recipe makes about 40 1 TBS portions - dividing that 2 teaspoons of calcium into 40 servings means you would need to give 0.05 teaspoon per glider or 1/10 teaspoon for 2 gliders.

The recognized glider diets are balanced with respect to the amount of protein, calcium and other vitamins gliders need to be healthy and are the easiest way to ensure you are providing all the nutrients your gliders need to be healthy - and for momma to provide enough milk for a growing joey if she does indeed have joeys in pouch.

I have links on my web page to the original instructions for most of the commonly accepted glider diets to help you look over these feeding plans.

http://www.gliderkids.com/contact.html

Hey :) congrats on the possibly pregnancy!

It's often hard to tell if she is pregnant, the best thing you can really do is wait and watch. My girls became very food aggressive when pregnant. And as the joeys grow bigger her belly looked darker (just because of how the skin was stretched so the fur looked thinner).

I'm not about to criticise you for not feeding an 'approved' diet as I don't myself. To a certain extent you can tell if your glider is healthy and the fresh fruits and veg are great. Anything lacking in the diet tho is a reason for joey rejection. I just increase the amount of food overall, but the protein does need increasing.

I feed fresh fruits/veg along with a protein source, I've recently just bought some Wombaroo High Protein powder which I now add to their fruits and veg. I've noticed a difference in one of my gliders appearance already and as it's a powder, it's very easy to add to their diet without them really noticing. I do blend my fruits/veg tho so the powder goes in the blender with them and gets whizzed all together.

I'd definately recommend it. It is pricey, but I lost a set of twins a few months ago. Mine were on a good diet, all healthy, just turned one year old which I think was probably the main issue. And as yours as still on the young side it really is important to do as much as you can to help her. I think people often take it for granted that the mothers will take care of the young, granted that a lot do, if anything was to happen to yours you really would kick yourself with the 'what if's' if you thought you could have done more.

But good luck!x

Thank you everyone for the useful information!
I made some adjustments to their food last night. I offered fresh diced cherry tomatoes, fresh diced strawberries, fresh diced carrots, and chopped boiled egg. I am going to boil a chicken breast and give them some of that tonight. Someone suggested that I look into getting an instant sugar glider diet off of Exotic Nutrition, so I will look into it and see what people think about that. One more question! How often should I offer my gliders yogurt? I have been giving it a few times a week, but is that too much? Too little?

Harpy, welcome to GG. You'll love being able to communicate at any time with others who love their gliders just as much as you you love yours. Some of us are a little rough around the edges, but everyone means well, and their first concern is for the gliders, not your feelings. I looked at your pics, and with my limited experience I would say that your babies "look" pretty healthy outside of the cracked fur, and they sound healthy. Some of us only wish we could devote 4-5 hours a day to our babies, so you have that on many of us.

I look forward to reading more of your posts, and hearing about the diet that you decide to use, and watch how that cracked fur goes away

The glider with the cracked fur isn't actually mine. ^-^ The picture is of Harpy at a "playdate" with another glider. But what does cracked fur mean, for future reference?