I've been the proud mama of my sweet female glider Baby for about six months now. Last week, after much consideration, I made the decision to find her a mate. I took her to a shelter and introduced her to the three gliders there. One glider in particular took an interest in her. I ended up taking him home and it initially seemed that they were very happy and affectionate. Marley (the male I rescued) is about twice Baby's size. They are the same age but he is very large for a glider and baby is fairly small. About three days after the introduction they began to mate, while I noticed some mating aggression like Marley biting at her neck, it all appeared normal. However today I noticed she seemed weak and I came to the conclusion that Marley has been eating all the food and not allowing poor Baby to eat or do much other than mate. While she only has one small mating wound, I am worried about this dominant behavior. I separated the two but now the issue seems to be that Baby is looking for him and misses him. Can anyone share their opinion or some advice on the matter? I do not want any harm to come to Baby, like her not being able to eat, but I also don't want to separate the two if they are attached. Any help would be appreciated, Baby is my first glider and I want to be the best suggie mommy I can!

If he's eating all the food maybe you can take her out of the cage and give her a meal just for herald then return her to the cage? The aggression I'm not so sure about but her not getting food is definitely a issue. Hope this helps

Thank you Vicki. I feel more concerned that his mating is too much for her and he may be hurting her in the process. I know some mating wounds are expected but it alarmed me that when I went to take him out he seemed to latch on and really start to hurt her. At the same time she seems very attached and wants him back in her cage. I guess the question is should I put them back together and try to observe? Or should I not take this risk since he is a bit larger than her? Just looking for some advice!

I know agression is a big concern but I can't really help with that because I'm not too experienced with it. It is one of the reasons I'm not getting a breeding pair but I know if he does bite too hard it will definitely cause damage, maybe keep a close eye on them for a little bit longer and if they keep it up you'll probably have to separate them unless you want to risk the injuries. Now if someone could reply who has experience with this that would be a lot more helpful :(

I haven't had my coffee yet and don't even know where to begin .....

First Welcome, and second, Nothing I'm about to say is meant to be "mean" so please don't take it personally and just try to understand it's meant to help you and your gliders.

I don't know of any reputable "shelters" that would allow you to let your female interact with their gliders. They are risking your gliders health and their own gliders health in doing so.

While I do think it's great that you got your glider a cage mate, there are procedures that we follow to ensure our gliders stay healthy and are introduced properly. At one week of having the male they shouldn't even be in the same cage yet.

The male should have been neutered BEFORE he was introduced to your female. You took some big risks doing things the way did. Rescue gliders should not be bred. You have no idea if they are related or not and you likely will never know if they are or not. That is why we don't condone breeding rescues.

There is usually a 30 day quarantine period, you have both gliders fecal tested once at the beginning then again at 30 days in case any parasites were dormant for the first test. Gliders are territorial, usually we do scent swapping to let the gliders get to "know" each other before a formal introduction is made.

Is your female 6 months old? If so she should NOT be breeding yet. At 6 months old her body is not finished growing yet. IF she does produce joeys it's not likely that they will survive. Immature parents have been known to kill their offspring and even cannibalize them. If she rejects them YOU will have to hand raise them, that means hand feeding them every 2 hours around the clock for WEEKS depending on how little they are when she rejects them.

Then we have the size difference. Now I have a Neutered male rescue that is twice the size of my female and they get a long great. That is not to say it always works out that way. But the neutering helps.

I have 2 females that are within 20 grams of being the same size and one female beat the hell out of the littler one. 20 grams does not seem like much but it is a considerable advantage to the bigger one and disadvantage to the littler one.

This happened while I was awake and in less than 2 minutes while I was right there at the cage trying to separate them. Amy the one in the picture is still recovering and healing and has been separated permanently from the colony.



If your girl ALREADY has a mating or dominance wound you NEED to get some of this and quite possibly take her to a vet to prevent an infection. This bottle cost me 30.00 bucks and soooo worth it!!! I use it twice a day on Amy's face and she is healing up nicely.

Bottom line here is that male needs neutered before you put them back together. When you do put them back together do it properly, do some research and read about introductions and scent swapping and what to looooook for to make sure the introduction was a success before just putting them in the same cage.

The neutering will help with several things, his aggression, his smell, preventing inbreeding, preventing joeys which YOU aren't prepared for. They BOTH should have fecal testing done especially since your female doesn't seem to be eating well or behaving normally.

The female in the picture above can not be returned to the other 3 gliders. So I have to start all over with her with another cage mate of her own. Pico, another female that's the same size as Amy just arrived yesterday. She is in her own cage and will remain in her own cage until I go through all the steps to get them ready for a formal introduction.

It could take a while as Amy I've only for about 2 months and is a rescue, Pico I just got yesterday and is also a rescue. They BOTH still need to be socialized and get used to being handled. I don't have a time frame for the two of them to be in the same cage. When the time is right then I'l introduce them, in neutral place.

Since the two have already shared a cage and possibly mated. If you do get your male neutered ( and I highly suggest it ) you still run the risk of having joeys for the next 12 months!! from the time you separated them. Female gliders have the ability to freeze a pregnancy in stasis and when conditions improve release the pregnancy for as long as a year.

So from the time you separated until a year from that day you have a possibility of the female producing joeys. The male should be neutered while they are separated and proper introductions done in case the female does produce joeys, she will need the males help to raise them. The males play a very active role of father and the female will need his help. If you leave her be a lone it could be to much for her to raise any joeys she might have by herself.

I really hope she does not get pregnant if she is under a year old. You should not have introduced an un-neutered male to her, but luckily there is a solution here. GET HIM NEUTERED as soon as possible, and it will cut down on his aggression a lot. Our neutered males still mate sometimes, but they cannot have babies.

What are you feeding them? You can overfeed and see if it helps, but he could still try to eat it all. We have a food aggression situation too and have not figured out what to do yet. PER glider each night you should feed 1 TBSP mixed fruits, 1 TBSP mixed veggies, and 1 TBSP protein staple (like HPW). So you should be giving them two TBSP of each thing in at least two bowls. You just need to hope that neutering helps him, because if he IS aggressive at all he can seriously hurt her. Mating wounds are normal and if it isn't severe that alone isn't something I would worry about, but ANY other wounds or any chasing, swatting, or other signs that he wants to try to hurt her are a reason to separate them.

We had a situation where we rescued a male and immediately put him with our female. He began being aggressive towards her, and we separated them. It turned out she was pregnant already. She could not care for two babies alone, and one died. We helped raise the other, who would have died without supplemental care. Once the baby was old enough to mate with his mom and had to be separated, we put the mom and dad's cages near each other. They started grabbing at each other through the bars and calling to each other, trying to get to each other. We put them back together and they were so much happier. Then, because we're idiots, more babies happened. We finally got everyone neutered. Instead of one neuter we had to get FOUR because every surviving joey they had was male. Everyone turned out fine, but there is not a big size difference for them and they were both over 1 year old.

She is over a year old. They seem to be doing well now. Thanks to everyone for your help.