My sugar gliders are eating too much corn! They eat corn everyday and they just eat corn. Will they have diarrhea? Will they have constipation? What sickness will they have? Will they die?

I'm not sure what symptoms they will have but corn is high in Phosphorous. You should only offer corn occasionally and when you do balance it out with Papaya or something high in calcium.

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Originally posted by AubreyBarto

I'm not sure what symptoms they will have but corn is high in Phosphorous. You should only offer corn occasionally and when you do balance it out with Papaya or something high in calcium.

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Thanks! I will try to feed them something else high in calcium. I guess it will be hard because they are true sweet corn lovers.

If you don't feed it then they can't eat it
Give it on weekends as a treat, make sure they get high calcium foods to keep them healthy

I'll put a few pieces of frozen corn in forager toys...they love it! As for meals I'll give it once every week or two.

If you are super worried... sprinkle calcium on the corn? Mine eat 1 protein, 2 veggies and 3 fruit nightly. (Have never given corn tho) I still sprinkle a small pinch of glider vitamins and a small pinch of calcium on their food nightly. Just to be sure.

I give corn in my mixed veggies every night. When I find the gliders fighting over the corn, or if they're just eating the corn, I'll blend it all together in a blender and feed them the veggies that way. They still eat it, but this way they can't be picky.

Corn is certainly the number one interest for a food item. You could choose to hand feed two or three kernels per glider and then place no corn in the bowl. When you have something in the bowl that gets picked before the corn, you know you are doing good. For instance, avocado.

The blender is ur friend....if its blended they have to eat it all....

I mush up avocado and add corn and usually some other veggie. Glider Guacamole! They love it!

Isnt corn one of the veggies that you are suppose to feed when feeding the bml, or should you be leaving that out?

What diet do you feed as your main staple? If you feed BML, then yes it is an important diet BECAUSE it is high in phosphorous and helps balance the ratios. If you feed another diet that allows for more variety, just offer it less often in addition to the other veggies you use in your diet rotation.

As for adding calcium, NEVER sprinkle a calcium supplement on top of foods that you offer. It is near impossible to measure a small enough dosage to be safe or effective. Instead you should offer a balanced staple and a variety of fruits and veggies to achieve the correct calcium to phosphorous ratios.

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Originally posted by Tigerlily88



As for adding calcium, NEVER sprinkle a calcium supplement on top of foods that you offer. It is near impossible to measure a small enough dosage to be safe or effective. Instead you should offer a balanced staple and a variety of fruits and veggies to achieve the correct calcium to phosphorous ratios.

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Wow... when I took my pair to the vet and went over their diet and what vitamins I was using she told a small amount of extra calcium was good for them as long as it was phosphorus free. She said it helped them to avoid leg paralysis. They are both a little over a year old, have been to the vet twice and are healthy. I haven't had them but about four months but my cousin had them for about seven months before me and their care remains consistent.

Yes, calcium is good for them but it should be included In The foods that they eat. Candy has done the math on portioning calcium to "sprinkle" I don't remember it off hand so hopefully she will come back me up here. It is VERY easy to overdose on supplements by just adding them willy nilly.
Think about this; a month's worth batch of BML contains 2 teaspoons of calcium, and it is one of the highest calcium diets available. When you sprinkle calcium on food, are you sprinkling exactly 1/15th of a teaspoon? If you are feeding a recognized diet, there is NO need to do this. If you are not, please resource diets and find one which works best for you so that your glider can receive balanced nutrition.

I also know this will not be a popular statement, but unless your vet is a glider SPECIALIST, most vets know much less than we do about diet. Until a few years ago, many of them recommended cat food for protein. It has also been shown recently that HLP is much more commonly caused by infection of various kinds that leaches calcium from the system and is almost never due to diet other than extreme cases of malnutrition.

My gliders are on the Suncoast diet which recommends the extra vitamins and calcium and I am using much less than 1/15th of a tsp. They just get a very small amount of both vitamins. I will actually measure my pinches tonight when I prepare their meal but I am sure I am well under a 1/15th. The only difference is that instead of using the protein in the 4 day rotation, I cut the serving down and serve daily and I will not use "leggy" bugs because I have heard that they can choke on the legs.

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The 1/15th was an estimate for the equivalency contained in a completely different diet, NOT a recommendation.

While the sun coast diet calls for "sprinkling" vitamins, almost all other recommended diets do not. Even the sun coast cautions against the possibility of overdose. My point in posting this is to caution people against giving additives which can be harmful.