So my female was carrying a joey that i had first noticed on December 25th, at this point it was about the size of a dime and since then it had grown a lot, probably to about a quarter size. I have one unneutered male and a female, they are on the instant HPW diet with added fruits and veggies, and every morning I would give my female some dried meal worms for extra protein. But anyway, yesterday morning i noticed that the other side of her stomach looked a little puffy, I thought maybe this meant there were actually 2? But then this morning I noticed that her stomach just looked puffy all the way across, the bump on the one side is gone... As this is the first time I've had a sugar glider carry a joey, it makes me very upset to think that something happened to it. Part of me is wondering if maybe there is another joey and that is why the lump is gone, maybe it is just evened out, because she does still look bigger than she used to. But I've also been loading her up with mealies so of course she would be bigger. I've looked throught the cage incase maybe it came OOP and fell somewhere but I didnt find anything. I guess what I'm asking is, can a joey go from being that big to no longer visible, without something awful happening to it? I've uploaded pictures but I can't figure out how to get them in the post yet, so they're in my main album...

It's possible that the baby was rejected, and occasionally gliders will cannibalize defective joeys. But if you aren't seeing movement in her pouch, tails sticking out, signs that there's a joey in the pouch, etc then the baby just isn't in there. It happens. How old are the gliders?

My female is at least 2 years old. And the father isn't even a year old. Probably around 10 months. I just found it to be surprising because the joey hadn't even come oop yet and she showed no signs of distress, it was literally just there one day and gone the next.

Look at her at different times and from different angles, and check well their sleeping pouch, sometimes the joeys just change of position in the pouch and seem to have disappeared while they are in fact there, especially if there is only one joey (the situation is a little different, but I've had the experience of one mysteriously appearing joey, after Oti went out of pouch, I could have sworn there was only him, and 2 weeks later his brother Teeboo mysteriously appeared in the nestbox, never knew where they hid him during that long because it did not seem that Frejya still had something in pouch).

There is also the possibility that they ate the joey for a reason or another... She will not necessarily show signs of distress if it happens when the joeys are not yet out of pouch (especially if she's a first time mother).

Twins can cause the mother to have a baby bump on each side. It will look even, but there will definitely be bumps there. If she is only carrying one or is hiding one and showing the other then she will be lopsided. A bump on one side and the other side is pretty flat. Depending on the age of the Joey the mother can hide the little fellow in her pouch in a way that it appears there is no Joey.


I'm sorry if this doesn't make much sense I'm not fully awake.

Well it was very lopsided, but then I thought the other side was getting puffy, then they were just gone. I knowww you're not supposed to feel their tummy at all but I did and it was completely soft so I'm thinking the joey just isn't in there anymore, as heartbreaking as it is. She is a first time mom so I'm hoping maybe if she were to get pregnant again she would be okay. Thank you all so much for your responses.

I'm sorry if something did happen to the Joey. Look at the bright side! If you don't nueter the male you will end up with a Joey eventually.

Don't forget she might be hiding the Joey so you can't see him. My first Joey was like that. My brother saw Rose give birth, but after that she didn't have a bump. We thought she ate him until one day a tail poked out. Next day he was OOP.

Sadly I'm doubting that is the case with my little joey, just because her lump was SO BIG. It was like the size of a large grape, I don't know that she'd have room to hide it. It was probably at the size where I would have seen a tail or a foot stick out soon. But I would absolutely love if one day a joey magically appeared and wasn't eaten!