Hello all!

I have been feeding my girls a mix of fruits, veggies and proteins every night since I got them. While leaving out their glider chow 24/7.

I rotate the proteins out nightly between eggs, yogurt, baby food, and cooked meat and I make sure they have plenty of fruits and veggies.

For whatever reason they never seem to finish or even eat anything it seems. They are definitely healthy (according to my vet and the fact that Shy is a little on the chubby right now) and don't seem to be hungry ever.

In an attempt to get them to eat all their food I just put it altogether in a smoothie, so I'm testing it out tonight but do you have any better suggestions? It's hard to figure out a food plan with these sillies. I'd appreciate some ideas.

To really help out, we would need to know how old your gliders are, and the quantity you are feeding them.

They should be getting some kind of diet staple every night, which you can find in several locations: under gliderpedia it lists several glider-safe dieets that are popular, also Candy has some of her own modified diets on her website www.gliderkidz.com
Most people I am familiar with separate the diet from the f/v.

Each diet varies, but generally its 1 tbsp per glider of diet and l tbsp of f and one of veggies. That is for adults. Depending on your girls age, they will eat less.

Our girls even though they are a year old usually do not eat all their food. I would rather there be some left than not enough for them. There have been nights where they ate everything, including all the diet. Then I wonder if they are hungry during the day.

If by 'glider chow' you mean a type of pellet food, it is not advised to be left out for them 24/7. Usually it isn't advised at all as part of a good diet, but some people worry that their glider's may get hungry during the day or that they may have something happen and won't be able to get home in time for their usual nightly feeding time.

That being said. Pellets are mostly all filler. If they are eating these it would cause them to eat less of what they actually need and may be the reason one of your girls is on the chubby side.

They will need to get on a well established diet, as suggest above. There are some that are mixed into a sort of 'smoothie' as you have mentioned. If your gliders are young they may need the fruits and veggies chopped up much smaller than you are offering. Often even older gliders do better with small chopped f&v.

If you continue to leave the pellets out 24/7 as you are currently doing, make sure to completely refresh them every day because they do not stay fresh and some types can go rancid quickly. You'll find that you won't need them at all once you get them switched to a complete diet that they like and that will meet their very specific nutritional needs.

Most staple diets do not need pellets. You can throw in a few monkey biscuits or what not but it isn't necessary if you feed them a full proper diet.


A pair i bought was raised on just pellets and when i switched them over... OMY did i see the change! :P

I'm doing the exact same thing! I blended everything together so it was still quite thick. I had one girl who wouldn't touch her veggies, and our lactating female wasn't interested in her protein! Everyone's eating everything now and it's great. They seem to love it. I still give them a small amount of pellets, a few mealworms, and a small piece of solid food each night. But their bowls are empty every morning except the little pieces they spit back out so it's great.

What I did is a cup of calcium fortified orange juice, 1/2 cup frozen mixed berries, 1/2 a banana, 1/2 cup veggies (cucumber, carrot, zucchini, celery), 1 cup protein which consisted of some plain turkey, some plain yogurt, and some plain boiled chicken, a few squirts of honey, and a few pinches of protein powder. I think that was it. We froze it in an ice tray and give each glider a cube each night plus the pellets, mealworms, and usually we give a piece of solid fruit because it's what they're used to. It's great how everyone is eating all their food now!

Everyone here is saying to cut the pellets, but what that means is do not give them free choice of pellets, because they are mostly fillers. So you can have a fat glider who eats a lot of pellets and doesn't eat their actual food. That means they aren't getting nearly enough nutrients. I give each glider like 6 pellets a night. Not nearly enough to fill them up, but something to munch on. And it cleans their teeth. Actually now that I've mentioned that, our girl who wouldn't eat her veggies was the only one FINISHING her pellets every night. She probably preferred them and filled up on them and her fruit. So don't let that happen, just give a little bit of pellets each night.

Wow thank you all so much! That makes so much sense!

I found this link: www.critterlove.com/picky-glider-glider-wont-eat-fv.html

I was wondering what you guys think about the salad at the bottom of this page:
www.critterlove.com/diet-info.html


If I cut back on the pellets and give them a tablespoon full (each) of this salad mix every night, I still need to make some sort of protein right? Whether it be chicken, meal worms ect?

I just want to avoid doing a big complicated diet!

I appreciate all of your help thank you so much <3

Also what about this www.asgv.org/videos.php?name=eov2

He's super promoting pellets as the main food.

Hi I watched the video of the vet. I understand his opinion. On that same note in really don't find the hpw that difficult at all. I made one batch of the liquid, along with one fruit and one veggie reciepe. Froze them all into ice cube trays. Then once frozen I transfered them into zip lock freezer bags. While it did take an hour or so to prepare everything...there's enough cubesof each to last me a month or better. It only takes a few minutes each evening to pop the cubes in the microwave and thaw them. Even with the homemade diets many sites sell kits that contain the bee pollen and hmoney along with the wambaroo powder. Eggs are cheap and most people have them in their fridge anyway. As far as some of the other diets most things can be purchased easily at a grocery store and the calcium supplements can pet purchased at most pet stores that have reptile supplies or even general nutrition stores like GNC. While I do know several diets do call for moisten pellets...I've found if given the option of fresh vs pellet mine won't touch the pellets. I just don't agree that the diets are that complicated or time consuming if prepared in advance and frozen into cubes for daily use. Dry pellets and dry foods I've read can cause abscess and mouth ulcers since they are designed to suck the nutrients out of their food. To me it seems unnatural to feed them a dry pellet. They cant chew it like a dog or cat. It stands to reason it would be difficult to suck on a dry food. Also once moisten most of the pellets spoil extremely quickly. Vet or not I question his opinion...my vet pushes fresh food diets.

Gliders have a unique digestive system that depends on plenty of fruit and vegetable foods and plenty of liquids. They have a hind gut that ferments much of the food they eat before it can be completely digested and absorbed.

Pellets are just not the best way to feed gliders.

While feeding chicken or egg daily as a protein source is OK short term, you would probably be feeding TOO MUCH protein for a gliders's needs and long term this could cause many problems with the glider's liver or kidneys that are not suited to process a very high protein diet.

While the widely used glider staple recipes may seem complicated, they really are not. You need to purchase the specific ingredients for the recipe you choose. Most are simply mixed in a blender then frozen in ice cube trays. One batch will feed two gliders for a month. (my GliderKids Staple recipes make a larger batch and have a smaller per glider portion (2 teaspoons) so one batch will last even longer before you need to make more).

The staple recipes in the widely used glider feeding plans contain appropriate amounts of protein for your gliders. They also contain the vitamins and calcium in appropriate dosages to meet your glider's needs. These feeding plans are the best way to ensure your glider gets the nutrients needed when fed with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

I have links on my web page to several widely used diets in addition to my own GliderKids recipes to help you locate the information you need.

http://www.gliderkids-diet.com/Staple-Recipes.html