I've had them for a month now, and the bonding process is not working.

Kat sleeps ALL day and ALL night, and she comes out only to eat but she has a poor appetite. Goku is hyper active between 10pm and 7am eats well(which is normal) and tends to steal anything her sister is trying to nibble on, but anytime I'm close to the cage she runs to the corner of the cage and freezes.

When I let them loose in their room for the full night, I walk into the room and Goku runs to the corner and freezes there. If I come close she runs to the other corner. Kat walked up to me once and climbed to my shoulder, but then jumped back to her cage and promptly went to the pouch.

Feeding by hand: they will eat an apple or a yogurt chip from my hand, but if my fingers come too close Goku will latch on with all four paws and bite my finger. Both ignore me while they have food in their mouths.

Pouch time: During the day they dont complain out of the ordinary, but if I put a hand inside they crab at me even after they accept my food offerings.

I thought at first it was a personality thing where one is hyperactive and the other lazy, but neither will accept being held in my hands. I literally do not know what it feels to hold them in my hands:( Using a cloth sometime works, but they manage to climb out and escape every time.

Recent vet visit shows them healthy. Their diet is well monitored full of calcium and meal worms and is balanced.

Never scared them, always speaking in low voices, usually work in pitch black dark.
They hate me.


Any ideas would be greatly helpful.

Good morning!
I'm sorry you're so disappointed so far! But, they do NOT hate you! Some gliders take time to learn trust, and it sounds like you're doing some things very well! One month is still a short amount of time, even though I'm sure you've heard of gliders that bonded right away.
Since all gliders have different personalities, you may have to adjust some things a bit. I'll just offer a few suggestions to start off with. Let's start with the bonding pouch. Some gliders are very afraid while in the pouch, especially if something comes into their space while they're in there. My youngest glider, Fionn, was extremely pouch protective. Just imagine you are a tiny creature with practically no defense mechanisms and you are cornered in a pouch and a giant hand is coming at you! So, instead of putting your hand into the pouch, if you'd like to offer a yogurt drop to them, hold it in the tips of your fingers at the edge of the pouch. Let them come to you. Be patient! They may take a while considering before they make a move toward you. In fact, whenever you want to offer them treats whether they're in the cage or pouch or whatever, let them come to you.
It sounds so wonderful that you have a room for them! But...maybe for now a tent would be a better place for them to get to know you. It's small and enclosed, and they can climb, run, and leap on and off of you. You'll be sitting and less ominous as well. I'll try to remember to post a link to the genji tent when I'm done typing. You can line the bottom of the tent with a blanket and include a few toys for them to play with.
Most gliders do not like to be held in hands, but rather enjoy being on you on their own terms. Most of my gliders just love to climb on me and jump on me then off, and only one of the six really doesn't mind me holding her in my hand. When I pick them up I scoop under their bodies and they run up my arm. I have two who absolutely hate to even do that. It's just their personalities.
So, it sounds like your furbabies are just nervous little critters! They need time, and to get to know you a little more on their own terms. What diet are you using (just curious)? Let us know what other questions you have, or if these answers sparked more questions. Many people on this site are very knowledgeable and helpful.
Just for a point of reference, I adopted Fionn in January and he was pouch protective for about five months, and he's still just a nervous little guy. He'll usually only come out of the cage while in his pouch, while Luna always hops right onto my arm. They're all so different!
Let us know how it goes!

http://www.amazon.com/Genji-Sports-Self-Expanded-Screen/dp/B00183N8S4

This is the one I use.

sounds like typical bonding to me. out of my 2 girls one (bubbles) took about 3 weeks before she was even somewhat comfortable with me, the other (buttercup) took closer to 2 months before she would even leave the cage for play time. even when she came out she just ran to the top of the cage where i keep the food and ran back in whenever i got close. it took a third month of daily pouch bonding before she would come play with me. just keep working at it.

my one suggestion is since they're not totally comfortable with you when you give them snacks in the bonding pouch don't stick your handing there to give it to them. even with my gliders bonded to me i rarely put my hand in the bonding pouch, i think of it as their space. when i give them a treat i hold it just outside the pouch so they can smell it and wait for them to come up and grab it. at first they might crab just because they smell your hand also, but before long they will learn that you also come with food without the whole scary giant hand coming in.

Thank you for the advice. It's been a couple of weeks since I last checked this post, but im still being bitten like I'm a piece of fruit or something -__-
Can't handle them at all. One bites (Finger toes ear, then nibbles on my shoes and pokes her teeth through my jeans and does the sideways jumping thing like I'm an enemy or something.A few times she even barks when I enter the room, and not the "I'm bored let's play" bark, it's the "DANGER DANGER" barking which let's her sister run scared into hiding.
I have been extra patient with them, but a biter and a coward aren't exactly the profiles of sane suggies.. I wonder what they've been through with human interaction before I adopted them.

I cannot handle them in any way, fleece or otherwise. They accept food from my hand sometimes, but on more than one occasion they've ignored the treats and latched on with both hands to chew on my fingers (Painfully).

I've lost hope, and have no physical interaction with them for fear of bleeding again. When they're loose in the room they decide the safest place is on top of the curtain and they never come down in my presence. When they're in the cage, they either do the freeze or hide in their pouch.

A few months of bonding, a few hours everyday in the pouch with me riding along, feeding them by hand everyday, and they still treat me like I killed their mother or something:(

Balanced diet and ample darkness, they should be happy. Instead I have a mad marsupial and a ghost

Wow. I'm sorry! That really stinks.
Where do you live? If you lived near me I would offer to come meet your gliders and watch how you and they act to maybe offer a different perspective.
What are you going to do now?

A whole month yes I know that sounds snarky, n I'm sorry but that was my first reaction. A month is really not that long.

I currently have 4 rescue gliders and I can honestly say the first month should be about letting them get adjusted not about YOU. You are putting some unrealistic expectations on these gliders and the is probably what is holding them back the most.


So lets get some more information here.

What is your cage set up like?

Can you post pics of the cage and the gliders ?

It'd be nice to see what you are working with.

There is an excellent write up that I think you need to read, written by Bourbon Hackworth.

"since we have a few new owners out here, I thought it may be the time to repost this so that they can read it, and hopefully try to understand what their new babies may be feeling

Building a relationship with your glider

**scroll through this, 1 line at a time**

one of the first things we do is to sit back and start watching the gliders, we have to spend as much time getting to know them, that they need to get to know you, through this time, we really want them to love us immediately, but the truth is, why should they? do they know you? do they speak your language? have they spent enough time with you to learn what your body language means, rather than what THEY perceive it as? NO? well then we will just have to fix that now won't we?

Just as no 2 kids are the same, neither are the gliders, each one has their own ways of talking to you, and each one will read you differently as well. It is up to YOU, to put words to their actions, You need to start to understand what they are feeling, why that may be, and help with possible solutions to fix it. Then you can take the next step to fixing it.

I will take you for a walk..... a walk into the mind of your glider, a place you will find yourself, more and more, and a place that will be the starting point and the most important part of trying to help yours and your gliders relationship. You will find this is not only fun, but it will be very rewarding. learning your glider, becoming one with them requires understanding, compassion, love and a lot of patience.

looking at life through THEIR eyes, not ours.
to look at life through their eyes..it is a hypothetical exercise, to get you to think about how your glider may feel about different situations,
okay , when I am done, I want you to sit back and really think of anything you may have done, anxieties included. After reading this, it should make you sit back and say.. okay now I know better.. and then work on changing things. PRACTICE what you learn here.

the first thing I want to do is make you do some thinking, some thinking as a glider, not as the owner.

Did you know a glider of 100 grams and a human of 125 lbs, that we are 700 times the size of a glider. (now do your own math to get a real comparison based on your weight, and your gliders.)but I am going to use these figures for our examples here.) to imagine what life for our gliders would be like, having an owner that compares, we would have to imagine something..........
87,500 lbs and moving and making noises that we don't understand. now sit back before you continue on, think about this.. think of things you could imagine that is that big, and would be our owner.......

personally I couldn't even imagine something that big moving, talking a different language, something that wouldn't understand our feelings.
so I am going to use King Kong, as my owner, (thinking of the movie, with the girl in his hand on the side of the empire state building,) although the picture is unrealistic according to scale (woman same size as the plane) imagine if she was scaled smaller to the right size..

for those that want a good visual, here is a picture
now imagine King Kong just getting you (your only 5 years old)and placing you in a little room, with nothing in it, no furniture, nothing ... (The room is your pouch), the door is only a window, (the top of the pouch)but very high in a building like structure with NOTHING to climb out on to, in order to escape, you can look out, and what you see is ODD, it is not like anything you have ever seen before, the life outside of that window is strange, scary and totally unfamiliar.
now King Kong walks by, makes some noises
and puts his hand in the window, and tries to grab you, what defenses do you have against King Kong? kicking, screaming, biting (lunging, crabbing biting), like they really are not going to much damage , but you are so scared, you try them anyway, nothing is working, and you continue to try, he may get annoyed and drop you, but he comes back and grabs you again. NOW.. what are you thinking?

do you care he wants to be your friend? of course not, what are you worried about? why are you afraid? because simply put, you don't want to be his breakfast, lunch or midnight marshmallow snack, for as much as you know about monsters this size, they want to eat you. why would he want to be friends with you? you have NOTHING in common at all. You can't even understand what each other is saying.

Oh no, he gets you,
he just put you in a bag, and he carrying you out of your room.. what are you thinking? where is he taking you, what is he going to do.. again are you thinking he wants to be your friend? at this point, do you really care? probably not, do you want to wait around to find out? What are you thinking? the same fears and anxieties as earlier, you don't know, and your uncertain about what is going to happen to you, it is overwhelming to you. your heart is pumping , very fast, you are breathing very hard, your body shakes with fear and your adrenaline is really pumping now..

Oh, he stopped...everything is calm.. what is happening, what is he going to do? You can't see him.. are you going to be calm and wait to see? or are you going to take the first chance you can to get away.

he opens the bag....... he looks at you, all you can see is his face ... what are you really looking at? are you watching his eyes? or his mouth? he is making noises..what is he saying? is he saying how delicious you look? or is he trying to be friends?

again, do you care that he wants to be friends? In your head. again, you don't know, it could be either way? which chance are you going to take? the chance he wants to be friends, or the chance he wants to eat you? my money would be the majority of people would think, he wants to eat them.. now you start screaming to leave you alone, you might even try to bite and kick him, but one thing is for sure, again, your heart is beating, you are shaking, your breathing heavy.
Here it comes, he puts his hand into your bag... he hasn't touched you yet.. now what are you thinking? what do you think he is doing? what will you do or try now?

some will choose to wait and see, some will choose to bite and continue to fight, some will try like heck to get out past his hand... (remember different people (gliders) act differently) this part can go in so many different directions..but I would......

try like heck to get as far away from him as possible, cause I KNOW in my head, he wants to eat me, and I am not ready to be his snack cake. sooooo. I will bite first then when he stops, I will run as fast and as far as I can...I will do anything to stay away from him. what would you do? What would you think and why?
Self Preservation kicks in and you......

are so small and he is so big, you have to be quick, smart, you must first get out.. so you bite him, run past his hand, run out, jump, do you care that you may get hurt, do you care the area may be more dangerous than he is? probably not..,He tries to grab you, you are too quick for him, you get away, you run and hide, he uncovers you, and reaches for you. you run under something he continues to come after you. Your heart is pounding so hard, you feel it in your throat. you run again, you climb up something he tries to grab you again. You run again, You jump,
you trip, you are down..

Gawd, he catches you....he is holding you tight, you can't get away, You bite him, he puts you back in the bag, he closes it up tight..
you are moving, where is he taking you? What is going to do? did you anger him? How are you feeling right now? do you think he wants to be friends now? probably not. What are you truly thinking? what are you feeling? What are your plans now?
He puts you back into your room....

What do you do? What are you thinking? What are you going to do when he comes back? How are you going to act? put yourself now in the many situations, that you have placed your glider/gliders in attempts to teach them you want to be friends with them, situations where you have tried bonding with them, before you have given them a chance to trust you. Before giving them a chance to get to know you and what your intentions truly are.

After putting our minds, into the frame set of our gliders, most if not all of us, can sit back and say.. I didn't know, I had no idea. Some of the things I did.. were awful I am sure, they had to be, my gliders was telling me they were.. when they showed me the only way they could, I tried harder, making many times the same mistakes over and over again.. until.....

I stopped one day, and looked deep into my Baybe's eyes, and started to place myself, in her tiny world, with me as my own monster.. Life turned around for me, and at the same time, I knew I had to change, for her, and you know what, my changes, gave her an opportunity to start to learn more about me, she reacted differently, not only towards me, but at the life I gave her as well.
she became more comfortable with me, with her surroundings, she played more, and she gave me, many, many years of true happiness. we became one, we understood each other, when she spoke to me (with her body language, I listened. Just as she was listening to mine.

When I was happy and calm, so was she, when I was scared, she felt it, she reacted to it, when I was not confidant, and understanding, felt unsure, so did she, she was more anxious, she felt uneasy.

for the next 2 days.... think about this story, think about things you have done, think of how you would have reacted if you were the glider? think about what you will in the future will do differently under the same situations thinking of life through the gliders eyes. could they have been prevented how? How could you have made things easier for the glider?

During these 2 days...do nothing more than use 1 sentence with your glider/gliders open their cage door often, If they are out of the pouch, ONLY look into their eyes, and with the compassion and understanding you have learned, say ONLY 1 sentence.. tell them... everything is going to be ok, do it with the love you feel, keeping your voice steady, sure and low... Watch their body language, learn it, try to put words, and feelings to the looks in their eyes. but keep it, and your hands to yourself, close the door, and go about your business. If they are in the pouch, Open the door, tell them everything is going to be okay, close the door, and walk away. Keeping your hands on the outside of the cage, and your thoughts to yourself.

You will notice when you say that 1 sentence, your tone is now different, your demeanor is now more understanding, the first time, apologize for what has been done in the past while you didn't know, and please let them know.. everything is going to be OK, IF they want to crab, let them, if they feel there is a need to defend themselves, let them, understand why they may feel that way.. look at it through their eyes, their feelings, their thoughts, not yours.

Let us know, what you are noticing, what you are now seeing from both, your eyes and your gliders... remember from here on out, you are looking at life through THEIR eyes, working on THEIR time, on THEIR terms, not yours.

I think giving them free range of the big room is setting back your progress. When they have too much freedom, they won't feel the need to interact with you. They're wild animals, and won't feel the instinct to bond with some random person who is sometimes around.

I would recommend a tent, or a small bathroom for bonding. A smaller area forces them to interact with you, climb on you, explore you, glide to you, learn your scent and that you're not a threat. A bonding bag helps too, but it is a slower process. Cup them through the bag (your hand on the outside), to get them used to your hand.

Cut little squares of fleece, and sleep with them. Rub them on you before you shower. Then put these fleece blankets into the sleeping pouch of your gliders. As your gliders sleep, they'll slowly learn your scent, and learn you're safe. Familiarity and routine is key for a bond.

After that, try wearing two tucked in shirts, and put your gliders in between the two layers, like a giant bonding pouch. Use the same shirts when you do this, as it will intermingle your scents and help with trust.

Keep on with the bonding pouch in the day and the handfeeding treats. You'll get there!

Once they've bonded, then you can offer the larger room to play in. But I've heard many stories of gliders who had too much freedom start bonding quick once the freedom was restricted. Sort of counter-intuitive, but worth a try.