Ok I need help/advice! I've had my male sugar glider for nearly a year now and decided he needed a friend. So I searched and searched and finally had a lady contact me about her sugar glider needing a new home with another sugar glider because her gliders cage mate had recently passed and was rather "depressed" so of coarse I had to help and took the poor thing in. Well it was during the day when I picked up the new sugar glider so of coarse she was asleep in her coconut hut. That evening she came out and I was able to fully see her and much to my surprise she had badly cracked fur and appeared to have been fed a poor diet. Well many days later my other glider escaped his cage to go play with his new friend ( thankfully they got along instantly and there was no fuss) anyway long story short a couple days after that I started to notice my first gliders fur looking quite nasty..like cracked fur, I'm beyond baffled because his diet is the same, his cage is cleaned regularly, nothing has changedone besides having a new friend that I obviously couldn't keep him from meeting lol. Any thoughts or advice what could have caused this all of a sudden?

welcome!

what diet exactly are you feeding your glider and what diet has the new glider been fed?

My glider eats strictly fruits/veggies, meal worms,and staple food. The new glider..well after having a couple conversations with her previous owner, she wasn't on any kind of specific diet and was basically fed some fruits,yogurt bites, & (oh my goodness) crackers/people sweets etc. In my opinion not a healthy diet in the least! I have of coarse switched her over to the food my first glider is on to try and get her on a healthy track, but it makes no sense why his fur is now looking "ratty" :( I'm a little worried that maybe in some way she passed something to him. Problem is they have been inseparable since the day he escaped his cage to play with her.

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Originally posted by mz.bliss5

My glider eats strictly fruits/veggies, meal worms,and staple food. The new glider..well after having a couple conversations with her previous owner, she wasn't on any kind of specific diet and was basically fed some fruits,yogurt bites, & (oh my goodness) crackers/people sweets etc. In my opinion not a healthy diet in the least! I have of coarse switched her over to the food my first glider is on to try and get her on a healthy track, but it makes no sense why his fur is now looking "ratty" :( I'm a little worried that maybe in some way she passed something to him. Problem is they have been inseparable since the day he escaped his cage to play with her.

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from my experence with cracked fur it isnt something that one glider can pass to another, its more of diet / humidity / cleaness of cage... if the pouchs has not been cleaned for some time that could be it aswell.
also i dont know if this is possibly but maybe the new glider is "marking" your glider to smell like himself?
just trying to help :)

Thanks, newfie suggie momma! I didn't think that was possible for the cracked fur thing to be passed along, but thought just maybe I had missed some information lol. As for the bonding pouch well mine came up missing (sad face) so I purchased a new one which I just received in the mail today so neither have used it yet. I tend to clean their cages and accessories twice a week because I'm afraid of it being dirty and causing a health issue. Which my male (suggie boogie) seems to love because he acts like it's a brand new cage set up and plays with everything while coming out often to love on me lol. I have a humidifier going at all times just too prevent cracked fur, but I'm not sure what's going on with this situation. Oddly enough they both act/seem very heatlthy, the new glider now of coarse, at first she hardly played at all. I greatly appreciate all the input here! Glad I found this site!

it could be that they just haven't had a good grooming yet. usually when I first wake my girls up, they have "bed head" with slightly cracked fur. after a few minutes of waking up and grooming each other their fur goes back to being beautiful and silky:)

Update! So I checked out dry shampoo (sold by sun coast gliders) and purchased some. Received it along with spray on conditioner & one time of using it and both glider's fur look A LOT better! My male's fur is back to normal and my female doesn't look fully normal yet but ever so much better then before using it! One happy suggie momma here! Guess they just needed a little extra "grooming/cleaning" from momma lol.