My Mortimer LOVES to eat! A little too much in fact. He's starting to put on some weight now, so I want to start feeding him a little less. The *only* reason that I put more food out to start with, is the fact that if I *didn't*, he'd eat *most* of it...saving his companion Scarlett very *little* food to eat at all.

My main concern, is that his cage mate, Scarlett, is *not* an over eater. So my real question is, how do I feed Mortimer *less*, without it affecting Scarlett? Scarlett is not chubby at all, and I don't want to starve her to get Mortimer to eat less. Scarlett is a very picky eater as it is, (So is Bertia, but she's in a seperate cage) and if she only saw a few scraps left over, I doubt that this would help her to be less picky, but I don't know...Should I feed them seperately during bathroom time at night maybe???

I hate to say this about my baby, but Mortimer is so greedy, that he won't even click his tongue to wake Scarlett up at night to eat with him. He slips out of the pouch at night, very quietly. I've even seen him look left, then right a few times, to check to see if the "coast was clear", then quietly slide down and devour quite a bit of the food. Scarlett will "clicK" for him to wake up, on those rare occassions when she's up a little earlier. I know this, because the only time that the two of them emerge to eat *together*, is after I hear the clicking sound. If there's no clicking, then only Mortimer will get up. He gets up a little earlier than her, to beat her to the punch on eating, smh.

So does anyone have any advice? Thanks in advance

P.S.

I've tried just hand feeding them as they come out of the pouch at night, but when Scarlett hear's Mortimer smacking down on food, then of course, she gets up too. And Mortimer likes to fight over food, so I stopped doing it that way. And they have a stealth wheel, that I got them like a month or so ago as well for exercise. Mortimer uses it, but he's still a little chubby. Any advice would be helpful.

How much do they both weigh?

~Erica~

You could try dividing their food up into different eating areas/kitchens and placing them in different locations.

But are you sure he is overweight? I think some gliders just like to eat more than others, or some like "more" types of food...they aren't so picky.

Jasper(M), Kodah(M),Zoey(F) are all the same age. I weighed them on the 2nd... Jazz is 101g. Kod is 164g. & Zoe is 102g.

Kodah loves his food, but he also runs on the Stealth pretty often but he's the heaviest of them all.

Jazz doesn't over eat & he never gets on the wheel.

Zoe doesn't over eat & she runs on the wheel about as much as Kodah does.

I do spread food throughout their environment simply for foraging opportunities and I've never seen any food aggression...Actually Kodah will go into the kitchen, get him a nibble of something and exit to eat it elsewhere so they all have the opportunity to get food. I think just like humans, some just hold onto the weight where others burn it off quickly.


But try spreading the food out and see if that helps.

StellaAnLuna, I don't know how much they both weigh. I'm going to order an, "American Weigh AWS-100 Precision Pocket Scale 100 X 0.01g" scale tomorrow though. I saw it on Amazon.com, (they sell EVERYTHING) and the customers that used it gave it such great reviews on it's precision.

JazzNZoeysmom, I will try spreading the food out. I hope this will work. Thank you both:)

You can buy a scale at walmart or target, I paid $35 but have been told others got one for $25. A 1 gram increment scale should be fine since you are not weighing joeys. Look in the jewelry or food section

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by JeremyLexie</i>
<br />You can buy a scale at walmart or target, I paid $35 but have been told others got one for $25. A 1 gram increment scale should be fine since you are not weighing joeys. Look in the jewelry or food section
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Thank you JeremyLexie, but just out of curiosity, what kind of a scale should I get even if I *had* joeys???

How much corn do you feed? Val explained to me a while back that corn will really put on the weight. I have a very chubby boy that needed to lose. Cutting back on the corn really does help. Make it a treat and not part of the meal. If you don't feed corn - certainly try some of the other suggestions. I am also a fan of more veggies than fruit.

I used to feed Bertia corn, but I stopped feeding her corn after I read up on it. They say that corn is just a "filler", with very *little* nutritional value. So I stopped. She absolutely LOVED all the while that I gave it to her though. And I've *never* given Mortimer and Scarlett corn. I got them after I got Bertia.

I'm thinking about getting that Raptor wheel, the one with the "full bounce" I believe it is? It's supposed to make your gliders have to work harder to make the wheel turn. By them having to work harder, they'll naturally be burning more calories. In the next few weeks I will probably get it. I hope that my babies will like it:)

I think you are referring to the Custom Choice Cruiser. As I understand, they do really help with making a more effective workout. It's certainly a quality wheel.

Oh, lol, right:) And thanks for correcting me:)

I tried spreading out the food JazzNZoeysmom, and I've noticed that Scarlett is eating more! Thanks a lot! And it's only been a few days! I still think I'll get the Custom Cruiser for Mortimer though. More exercise couldn't hurt him either way.