Hey everyone!

I'm new to the sugar glider world, but tried to read up on everything I could before I purchased my babies! I just wanted to run by with all things I've noticed that I haven't been able to find the answer to online.

First, I got my baby girl, Neela, 10 weeks OOP and 2 weeks later got my baby boy, Nappa, 10 weeks OOP 2 weeks later. I've had them roughly for a month now.

My first two questions are behavior related:

1. Neela was very and kinda still is skittish, but has come a long way in bonding for such a short time. Randomly, when we have our nightly tent time she will run up to one of my fingers and bite hard. It's a painful one time bite and then she will run back up my to my shoulder. She doesn't crab anymore like she did in the very beginning so I'm not sure it is related to fear and she comes to great me and my fiancé in the morning. I'm not sure why she does this.

2. Nappa is the opposite of Neela in that he is not shy. He crabbed only on the first day and then was all over the place with us. With him he will come up to my hand, lick it all over, graze it with his teeth and then occasionally nip. I'm curious if this is grooming. He also does this adorable thing where he will run to a corner of the tent and then put his front arms back and to his side and then slide forward on his tummy (imagine a penguin sliding down a hill). Just curious to know what that behavior is as well. Maybe marking his scent?

3. What is the diet you feed your gliders and if you have a link for that specific diet. What works best for you?

Thank you!

To do the best I can to answer your questions with possible reasons.


All gliders have different personalities, and your gliders are still young, so still developing theirs to a point based on their experience. I do not know if I can word this any better, sorry.

A month isn't really that long to have gliders learn to trust you, it can take time to develop a relationship with them. They are learning about you as you are learning about them, so they will experiment and test, this can be a part of what nipping is about at this point.

Gliders also are not domesticated, they know how to express themselves by defense, this means crabbing and biting when they are frightened, disturbed, or just plain don't like something you're doing.

Gliders are also scent orientated, sometimes this is an issue for biting.

As for the sliding, I've never seen that it sounds adorable!

Hang in there, continue spending all the time possible getting to know them and letting them get to know you, build a relationship, build trust...this is what "bonding" is.

Thank you for responding! :)

I'm excited that you say 1 month isn't that long for a relationship! The pet store owner said a week was all it took to have them bonded. They are friendly now, so I can't wait to see how they will be in a year!

As for that belly thing that Nappa does, he did it last night to me during tent time. He began rubbing his chest on my arm.

Awww. He's marking you as his own!

Tjones covered most of it so I won't repeat all that

Diet, us telling you what we feed isn't the best way to chose a diet for YOU. I have my own reasons for feeding the diet I chose as does everyone else. I actually prefer to not tell people what I feed so it doesn't sway their decision one way or the other.

Personally, there are 2 diets I suggest and endorse out of the many widely used diets. Bml and Critter Love, because they have both been used for 10 yrs or longer and have undergone testing.

So what should you consider? ...

1 Are you ok with powdered ingredients and buying things online?

IF yes, Critter love, which has powdered ingredients and you have to order through Critter Love. http://www.critterlove.com/diet-info.html

IF NO, Bml. This applies to all well known diets and bml, bml is the only diet widely used that you can find all the ingredients locally and not have to order online. Everything in the recipe can be found at grocery stores and pet stores. The only powdered ingredients are the calcium and vitamins. http://www.bmldiet.com/bml-recipe.html

Those 2 question can narrow it down for a lot of diets not just Bml and Critter love.

The other bonus to these two diets are both of the creators are active in the online community and make themselves available to answer questions, and help people struggling with their diet. Peggy created Critter Love https://www.facebook.com/peggy.h.brewer And Bourbon created Bml https://www.facebook.com/bourbonh

2, what can you afford to feed consistently ? Doesn't seem like a big issue especially when you only have 1 or 2 gliders but it can be. I have 9, so cost is part of why I chose the diet I did. I now order supplies in bulk online to make it even more cost effective, but in a pinch I can still buy everything locally.

3, Prep and freezer space... Some diets require a lot of chopping and take up a lot of room in the freezer. I physically can't stand n chop food for hours and my freezer space is about the size of a cooler that holds 6 packs ok it's a little bigger than that but not by much. I don't have space for a gallon of salad and a gallon of staple.

Ultimately, the gliders also have to eat it...which may trump all of our personal reasons for choosing a diet.

So in the end I did pretty much tell you which diet I chose and why without actually saying it Can you figure it out??

@jdching: Yay! I didn't know that!

@Leela: Thank you for those suggestions! I had just decided to use BML right before you posted. I was told pellets were sufficient enough with fruit when I got my babies, but after looking around I realized this is definitely not a balanced diet for them. I appreciate you taking the time to reply to me!

Awesome Bml is a great diet, just make sure to follow the directions exactly no substituting ingredients.... and make sure your feeding fruits n veg from the allowed list for the bml diet