We have two re-homed gliders, about 2.5 years old, un-neutered male and a female. Recently she bloated, she was fine in herself but noticeably more round and eating insane amounts of food, snatching food from the male but generally drinking fine and moving around as normal. They have a tent we play with them in too and they climb and jump and exercise so she has a lot of space.

We took her to the vets and he said he could feel no blockage and that he suspected she was pregnant as they were mating just a couple of weeks before, he gave us pro biotics but said anti biotics would possibly be harmful to a new joey so wanted to see how we got on with those.

She had the pro biotics and the bloating went down slightly but not much, then last night she has had diarrhea and the bloating went down a lot, she had ten mins where she was very weak but as soon as she had some water and food she was fine and back to normal again but pretty much went round again. We have contacted the vets again and waiting for them to call back, I have felt around for a joey and I cannot feel anything distinctive so I am not sure if she is pregnant.

She is completely fine in herself, she is eating and drinking and no difference in behaviour, gets exercise, isnt making any alarming sounds or moving different. She is on a good diet with mixed fruit and veg, we removed seeds a month or so ago, meal worms and dry mix, she also has her added calcium and minerals / vitamins from a uk glider website.

Has anyone else had this issue? I know they hide illness very well and we have done so much research and always take them to the vets and feed them correctly, first time sugar momma and really want to work out what is causing this if its not a blockage, or could the vet be wrong? If it is a blockage I have seen they tend to not eat so again it conflicts with what I have read. The male is completely fine by the way, never has any issues. Any help would be appreciated

So how did this turn out?

The vets never called back that evening, in fact they never called back ever and she passed that evening. She was fine eating and running about one minute and the next she went limp and within 20 mins or so she was gone. She was not pregnant, the vets completely wrongly diagnosed her and we believe we were right from the start they she had a blockage, we should have stuck to our gut feeling. We had her cremated and they wrote a lovely little poem for her and her ashes sit in her little box next to her cage. Our male now has a new mate, they are both a very good weight, the new female is double the size of our last little girl, we didn’t know much about gliders at the time but I think she was maybe not very well since we rehomed her. Seeing how big his new mate it (over 100g) and how active she is definitely made us realise she may have always had underlying issues. The new vets is fantastic, we got the male neutered immediately, and we have cut out any seeds now in the diets and they are both on the SGS2 diet. Taught us a lot and I would just always strongly urge anyone with any sort of bloating to go immediately to the vet’s and get a second opinion if you don’t believe they are pregnant.

I used a certified (The Association of Exotic Mammal Veterinarians - AEMV) vet for my Piper rapidly losing weight, was told she's fine - three days later she died.

Most vets are idiots when it comes to real knowledge about suggies...

I rely on research, fellow suggie owners, and instinct ~ when a suggie gets to where you notice it's sick, it'll always be too late... they hide their problems too well - ya gotta be real sensitive to them by being around it a really whole lot!

... but back to your blockage issue - my male had gotten to where I noticed he was not defecating normally and bloating. I now hand-feed him some juice thru a syringe after every 'feeding' - three meals a day so three times a day: his b'fast gets cran-grape juice, lunch gr'fruit juice, and after the dinner HPW he gets pineapple juice. The juice hydrates them lubricating their stools ~ I've had no problem with constipation ever since