I have a girl glider (Harley) I got a week before I got my three girls (Pumpkin, Luna, and Willow) They have been living in separate cages until I could go through all the introduction steps. My last step was intros in neutral territory (aka my tent). Everything went very well except for Harley riding Luna and Pumpkins back. I was told that was a dominance thing. It is weird because Harley is smaller than the other two and younger. She and Willow are around a year. Luna is two years, and Pumpkin is three (and Willow's mom). I have put them all together in the big cage for the first time. I am very nervous about this. There has been a couple small squabbles but nothing major. How do I know that they are going to keep getting along? Would there be fighting right now if there was going to be any problems? What noises should I listen for besides crabbing?

A fight broke out between Luna and Harley. I don't know what happened but they were in a ball crabbing very loudly. I had to separate them. I checked out Luna and she is good. No bites or open wounds. Harley is not tame and won't let me hold her but from what I could see she is unharmed too. I put Harley back in her cage for now. I don't know where to go from here. They were all getting along so well. I am so discouraged by this. I really want Harley to get along with my other three girls. They get along fine in the tent and where several hours together in the cage before this happened. I just don't know what went wrong.

Riding on backs is not a dominance thing in my experience. Especially if the glider catching the ride is smaller and younger, usually to me that means the younger one is reverting to joey behavior recognizing the older gliders as Aunts or uncles. Joeys ride on mom n dad and other colony members backs.

Even if you have a text book perfect intro, that doesn't mean the colony will get along long term.

Did you thoroughly clean the big cage? make it as neutral as possible?

Sometimes we try to put gliders together that have the same job and they clash. When we introduce gliders we don't usually consider their already established roles and jobs. When you add new gliders to a dynamic, the entire dynamic, status of the glider, job of the glider etc can change. However, sometimes a glider may not want to change to make room for the new glider.

Where to go from here? continue scent swapping, pouch swapping, wear the trio in one bonding bag and harley in a different one at the same time... IF it were me I would intro Harley to one of the other gliders ( not the one that fought with her ) You will need to closely monitor them, then if the pair get along intro another from the trio and repeat leaving the one that fought with her last.

Intro's can take time and a lot of work, and even then still may not work. I've intro'd single to single, 2 pairs to each other that after 3 months time resulted in a female getting injured. Then she was intro'd to another single, then another male. Then I intro'd the 2 trio's to each other, or they introduced themselves rather which worked for a few months, this colony of 6 included the 2 girls that previously fought before, they still aren't able to live together in the same cage.

We had to go back to two trios and I will not try to make another large colony with these 2 trio's. At some point, we have to listen to the gliders and what they want rather than keep trying to get our way.

If the next round of intro's doesn't work for you, consider pairing the single up with just one of the gliders in the trio and have 2 pairs. I get that one cage is easier, and often times the humans goal. But the gliders do need to come first and foremost. I get that you don't want her to be a single, which is why I suggested two pairs rather than a quad. This way she's not alone and not in an environment where she has to live with constant fear of the other glider or worse be injured or killed by the other glider.