Hi everyone,

I am sad to say I am considering getting rid of my two gliders.

Prior to getting them, the only research I had done was through PPP. They made gliders sound like the easiest, most wonderful pets in the world who would love you forever the minute you got them! It wasn't until after I had purchased my girls was when I found this forum and real, accurate information. They have definitely changed my lifestyle from what I expected, not for the better, either. Their maintenance isn't anywhere near as easy as I had believed, they are quite smelly (yes, I do clean their cage frequently on a regular basis),quite expensive, and worst of all, they haven't bonded to me as I was told they would.

I have had them since around December 1st when I purchased them from a breeder, and they have barely bonded to me at all. It makes me want to cry to be quite honest. I don't know if it's my fault or what, but they seem to want little to do with me. When I take them out for tent time, all they do is come out, urinate and defecate on me, and high-tail it back to the pouch. At night when I go to feed them, I always take out a little bit of fruit and put it in my palm for them to come get to encourage them to come to me, and they come to my hand, snatch the fruit, and dart back to their bed. They act like I'm going to take it from them or hurt them, which I have never done in all my life. Although they have never bitten me, lunged at me, and they no longer crab, they seem to hate my presence.

I wanted gliders to enjoy. To be like my little friends. Now, being with them is no fun for either of us... For me, it's simply discouraging.
I raised them from babies, I don't know what is up. Throughout this last semester in school has been very stressful so I haven't had as much time to spend with them as I'd like, during school I got to take them out in the bonding pouch twice a week or so and do tent time once a week. Now that school's out (I've been out since May 1st), I carry them in the bonding pouch several hours at a time a few times a week, and we do tent time for 30 minute sessions about twice a week.

I can't have them hating me like this for another 15+ years. I don't know what to do. Is it my fault they never really bonded to me? Do I just need to work with them more? Will they ever bond and be as great as I've heard? Does it get any better? Are gliders just not for me?

Please help. It kills me to think about getting rid of them but I just can't do this. It is truly heartbreaking for me.

Thank you.

I'm so sorry that you feel like your gliders hate you. it seems like your gliders are going to take much longer to trust you than others but that's okay! they all will eventually come around.

if I were in your situation I would just start over. start small. out your hand in their sleeping pouch while they are sleeping and stroke them and talk quietly to them. give them some pieces of fruit. once you can do this comfortably everyday with ease, try to bra train them of out them in the bonding pouch for 2 hours. each day do one more hour than the previous day. at night while they are playing in their cage, offer them licks of honey off your fingers through the cage bar, do not stick your hand in the cage. let them come to your fingers and lap the honey or yogurt up.

after doing all this for a while with your gliders comfortable with it all, try ONE bathroom bonding session. stuff fleece under the door, close the toilet lid, bring in a cordless nightlight, bring treats and their wheel or any other of their favorite foraging toys. remove their pouch from sight this way they cannot hide. get them explore using treats and toys. just do this for 30 mins at first, then in a few days move it up to 45 mins then an hour. make sure you are doing this around the time they wake up at night this way they will actually want to play

make sure to be respectful of what they do not want to do. for example, my one glider kiwi hates the bonding pouch and try's to bite her way out, she would rather be in my bra.

good luck and stay positive!! <3

I try and wear my gliders on me everyday for several hours and do bathroom bonding several times a week as my gliders love it.

Thank you so much!

After looking around on the forum some I realized I was not alone, and some gliders have taken a while to warm up to their owners, too. I think some of it was my fault for not spending much time with them during the months I was in school.

I'm not ready to give up yet, though! I am going to work with them everyday and follow your advice. Thanks again! :)

they are quite smelly (yes, I do clean their cage frequently on a regular basis

STOP! only clean a part of their cage. you can clean the bottom poo and pee out, but only clean less then half their cage. Or they will remark it to make it their own all over (my coworker did this with theirs and the smell went MOSTLY away). BUT.. glider do smell some, we clean some cage bars about 7 to 10 days. If im very close to cage I can smell the odor, but if I'm other side of room I can't smell anything and we have 6 gliders in a large cage.

"quite expensive" - we have 3 dogs, bag of food is $35 and they go threw this fast. Plus vet visits for shots are a lot. frozen veggie bags $1 to $1.25 each. fruit to cut up and freeze, apples, pears, butternut squash, mango a little more $, and the wombaroo $50 but good for 16 containers full and some honey and eggs. Add it all up and its still nothing compared to just dog food.

" When I take them out for tent time, all they do is come out, urinate and defecate on me, and high-tail it back to the pouch"

I think you are doing this wrong, when they come out of pouch they will need to go pee and poo. GIVE them a minute to go - OFF OF YOU. Rub their back if you can, try to stimulate them to go before they get on you! SECOND - TAKE AWAY THEIR POUCH, DON'T LET THEM GET BACK IN P0UCH. some of ours will go for the wife's bra to hide and groom and sleep, their favorite spot, I get mad at wife and say "get them out of there during playtime!!!"

"I always take out a little bit of fruit and put it in my palm for them to come get to encourage them to come to me, and they come to my hand, snatch the fruit, and dart back to their bed"

This is what happens to me at the start, BUT you have to work at small progress steps. 1. GET LIVE OR DRIED MEALWORMS - gliders love these, specially live ones. they will go the extra mile for MEALIES!!! I put treat on hand like you do, but after they get comfortable with that, MOVE THE FOOD! I put hand/arm at cage door, and put treat in other hand, in the air. This forces them the WALK ON MY HAND/ARM/SKIN, to get the treat. After awhile they should start to eat some of treat on your hand and not run away, BUT this can depend on their awakeness? sometimes my gliders get spooked and run still. a dog moves, or a load noise, I pickup up one of the new ones and after that he wouldn't come near me except to get the mealie and he would run like HECK! Gizmo/link/ sophie are 3 that will sit on us no problem. Big mama still runs away from us after 6 months, she just does NOT like human. Big mama does NOT jump, but put her on your shoulder and get one foot from her cage and she WILL JUMP to get back to cage and away from me.
We pick up pouch during day, gliders sleeping or sleepy and wife sticks hands in pouch, just sits on couch with NEWER gliders sleeping her hand in the pouch for several hours, that makes your scent part of their world.

"and we do tent time for 30 minute sessions about twice a week."



We have playroom in a room with a tv, so playroom time lasts about 2 hours while we talk or feed treats or just watch tv as the gliders run around the room 7 foot by 9 foot. Its full of toys and ropes. does your tent have a wheel or other toys for them. We started in bathroom with just a small baby toy we put treats in.
Now if we open mealworm container, that sound alone will bring 4 or more gliders to your hand, they will crawl all over me to get to that container and get the mealies. Link with get a hold of the container and is VERY hard to pull his little claws away. BUT during playtime they are also running and playing, so they don't like to be handled as much, they want to run and jump. We can pet them but they are on the move a lot.
I think your should increase tent time.
I think you should put your hand in bonding pouch with them sleeping in it.

I think if you can handle them, THEY WONT RUN AWAY WERE YOU CANT GET THEM. You should tuck in your shirt and put one in your shirt as a pouch, see if they will stay there, sleeping next to your skin and scent. We have 3 we can put in shirt, our 11 year olds almost fight to see who gets sophie in their shirt. Gizmo spends lots of time sleeping and holding onto the wife's bra. Link can go shirt but he grooms so hard it feels like he is pulling out your hair or biting you. Of course big mama can't handle being with us(at least she isn't biting anymore), and the two newer boys Riggs and Scarface, Riggs is doing very well, he will jump out of cage and onto my shoulder, but I still worry he will jump off me and at one of the dogs, that would be bad. and scarface is like your gliders still, very scared and nervous. gets her treat and runs to back of cage. But I notice every time he forgets to run while eating his mealworm, or how he is starting to get on my whole hand to get that treat.

You have to keep pushing/training your gliders to that next step sometimes. It takes different times for different gliders. Next tent time, KEEP THAT POUCH AWAY FROM THEM, scope one up and put in your shirt, see what he/she does.

Although they have never bitten me
I think they have never bitten you cause you haven't pushed them into that new territory yet. I don't get bitten much, I'm a scaredie cat. I let my wife take the bites, she puts fist in pouch and lets them bite (when we first get new gliders) then they figure out the hand isn't going away and isn't hurting them. I would scope them up to put them in pouch while going to or coming from playroom and newer ones give me a good bite sometimes, then that bite gets lighter, and then lighter. Then they either stop biting or at worse case give me the smallest little nip to let me know they aren't happy I'm picking them up. Letting them walk on you by their own choose is easier, but sometimes you gotta grab, specially if they try to make a break out the open cage door or they are refusing to get back in pouch at end of playtime in playroom. Always a least 2 that aren't done running and jumping and wont come near you, and we are always out of mealies and end of playtime.

Hi,

I understand what you mean, I believe I might have not clarified a bit.


Cleaning the cage: I only clean the bottom half, the tin where all of the yucky stuff gets. I wash the bedding and bars once every 7-10 days,

Quite expensive: Well, yes, they are quite expensive when you're a minor who doesn't have a paying job who has to pay for them completely by herself. PPP told me they'd be about $12 a month. I suppose that was gullable of me to believe but as I said, I had only heard information from them before it was too late.

Bathroom at tent time: I do give them a moment; I know they are just like us, usually having to use the restroom when we wake up from a nap or from a night (or in their case, day) of sleep. The funny thing is is they will come out of the pouch long enough to get on me and use the restroom and go right back in, as if they almost want to pee on me. It's quite frustrating. I will try rubbing them as you have said. I do try to take away the pouch and hide it, but they will go to where I've hidden it and try to figure out how to get to it without the least concern of me.

Hand feeding: I have been trying to take baby steps by just putting it in my palm to get up to them to walking on me, but they don't enjoy that. I will occasionally balance it in my forearm to get them to come there, but they ignore it. Tonight they actually did a lot better, I held them in the bonding pouch with my hand in it for a while and that helped immensely. They even jumped on me when I didn't have food. I don't know that they completely hate me, but bonding had not gone as smoothly as promised. We're taking little steps, however. Making progress :)

Tent time: I would like to extend sessions if they were more enjoyable. Like I said, it's basically just them using the restroom on me and searching for their pouch. I'm trying to take baby steps and gradually increase the time I spend with them.

Biting: I have pushed them plenty, I believe. They came from a breeder and were reasonably tame (far from easily bond-able, but tame) when I got them. I do grab them when nessecary and they haven't bitten me, even when they were new and I'd put my hand in the pouch when they were crabby and grouchy they've never bitten me. One made a move to strike once, but backed off. That was the third day I had had them, never shown anything like that since.

Thank you for your advice :)

we got dried mealworms from walmart, bird food section, about $5 a large bag. I have been told if its good for the birds its ok to feed gliders. but they are fattening and not so healthy, but its sugar candy to gliders. so I try to keep it to a minimum, plus we wieght the gliders to make sure they are not getting fat.

I would suggest getting $100 together, odd jobs, helping nieghbor or something. with that you can get $50 of 1 kg wombaroo( 16 containers full) , $40 gallon RAW honey and $8 bee pollen. if your mom keeps eggs in the house you need 3 eggs per recipe. that $100 is enough to last 2 gliders for a very long time (probably over 1 year), honey does NOT go bad, and I think the wombaroo has a long shelf life. this is the Ohpw feeding type.
then all you need to do is swing that veggie and fruit bill when needed. I use 2 tuperware containers, one for frozen, and one for unfrozen stuff at store then freeze it all. I use the critter love fruit and veggie mix recipes. With 2 gliders one recipe should last you one month or more.

keep giving them your scent, dont forget to put a smelly shirt of your in the cage on the cage etc.

Oh and one last thing, LIGHTS OUT! I was playing with the gliders GREAT and the wife came into play area, she turned on light and suddenly all the gliders hid. they all just vanished. After thinking about it, I turned some lights off and others dimmed them very low. In the low light, 5 minutes later, glider out playing around like crazy.

Hi!
You've gotten great advice so far.
I'll just add that one of my gliders always pees on me when she comes out of the cage, and a couple of the others often do. I think it's funny because I think it means they love me and are marking me as theirs. I always have baby wipes handy to just wipe it off.
My youngest boy, Fionn, doesn't play much either. I take their pouch and instead of hiding it I put it inside my shirt. So, Fionn may play, but more likely he'll go inside the pouch in my shirt. So, I'm his safe spot. Sometimes his play is exploring the inside of my shirt, my sleeves, and my hood. He does play occasionally, but I'm really more of his living pouch. I do have a very low watt light bulb in that room as well because Fionn is definitely scared of the light. (My other gliders aren't).
I think a more regular playtime together might help them eat treats while sitting on you. Even if you could do 15 minutes per day the routine might deepen their trust so they stick by you. Dried mealworms are a favorite treat for my gliders. Sit very still and put a couple on your leg or something. At first they'll grab and run (that's what gliders do!) but then if you always just sit still I bet one will eventually sit on your leg to munch. Don't forget to move slowly if you reach to get another treat.

One question: can you define what your expectations are for being "bonded"? I got my first furbaby from PPP as well, and I thought they would act just like they said...sleeping in my pockets, hanging out on my shoulder, not ever jump off me because I was their world. Haha...not! Even my blind glider would just leap off my shoulder when we were first bonding. I've learned they're curious, independent little creatures and are much more interesting than I originally learned. Maybe some folks can offer solid advice about specific behavior you're interested in encouraging if we know what it is.