Background: My female glider got pregnant by an intact male belonging to a pet sitter I had left my gliders with when I went out of town. Bio dad is no longer in the picture, and mom lives with her longterm cagemate (a neutered male). Both joeys are just over 3 weeks OOP now and are healthy (first vet-check last week for mom and babies went well)! Surrogate dad has been babysitting and cleaning the joeys faces and cloacas.
Sometimes I will hear light crabbing from a joey (sounds different from my female crabbing and my male NEVER crabs) but when I look in the pouch, I can't see the cause. Last night I heard the crabbing again and when I checked on my gliders I saw my male on the side of the cage with the baby girl joey clinging to his back. He looked like he was trying to throw the baby off of him, and biting the joey, who was crabbing constantly. I have heard the babies cry and this was NOT a cry but a definite crabbing. Surro dad seemed to alternate between biting and licking, but it looked violent and the joey was being flung around on his back. The baby kept trying to crawl back on him every time he knocked her off. I also saw him bite and hold the scruff of her neck as if he was trying to mount her. The joey was crabbing during all of this.
Mom was watching from the pouch, and doing these long hiss noises. She didn't leave the pouch (she had the other joey with her) but seemed concerned. By the time I got into the cage to grab the joey, surro dad was heading back to the pouch with joey on his back.
I grabbed the joey to check on her, she had no bites on her. When I put her back in the pouch both mom and surro dad immediately started grooming her. No crabbing was heard for the rest of the night (I stayed up by the cage to be sure).
Is this behaviour common or is the surro dad becoming a threat? I haven't seen much of him outside the pouch since the babies came OOP. He babysits and lets mom run off and on for hours on her wheel. These are my first joeys so I'm not sure what behaviour is normal. This is the first time I have seen any threatening behaviour from him, also the first time I've seen a joey out of the cage pouch. I've also never heard crabbing from the little boy joey. Could surro dad be trying to mate a 3 week OOP joey? Is crabbing from a joey like this normal? Violent grooming/nibbles?
I have another cage ready if I need to separate surro dad but would prefer not to as mom really takes advantage of his babysitting. Any suggestions or reassurance? Thanks!
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