Hello all, my family just recently purchased 2 sugar gliders, both are females (very young). They seem to be adapting to life in their new home quite nicely and they are allowing us to handle (a little) and play frequently. My question is concerning their diet, they were on the BML diet and we have continued with this, but they do not eat much of the mixed food. We have been giving them the fruits and veggies along with the mix, and they eat those up. I am worried that they are not getting the proper vitamins/nutrients as those are in the mix (which they only nibble). My question is should we stop giving the fruits/veggies for a couple days and only leave out the mix? How much should they eat of this mix to get adequate nutrition? Perhaps we are doing it completely wrong all together, since we are new to this. We have only had them since Sunday, and our breeder has been dealing with a sick child and has not gotten back to me with advice, so I thought I would try here. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

yes you can just give the bml and no fruits n veg for a couple days then add a few pieces of veg when they start eating more of the staple and build the veg and fruit back up to the 1 tablespoon per glider portions little by little starting with the veg first. If you need further advice contact Bourbon she would be happy to answer your questions and give advice she's the creator of bml you can reach her on facebook https://www.facebook.com/bourbonh

Are you putting the wheat germ in the fridge after opening it? if not it will go rancid and the gliders won't eat the bml cause it tastes off

Thank you for sharing that link and for taking the time to respond.

NO I did not put it(wheat germ) in the refrigerator, as I was not advised to do so, nor do I have any prior experience with it.....looks like I will be tossing that and purchasing a new one for the next batch. Thanks for letting me know.

http://www.bmldiet.com/bml-recipe.html It did say on the recipe at one point to refrigerate it, it doesn't specify that now. But if you look at the label on the wheat germ it'll say refrigerate after opening I made the same mistake when I first started lol

Make sure to read the special notes and important notes on her site there is good tips for getting them to eat the bml

Leela

May I ask what diet you use? I do not want to change their diet since it's all a new transition. I have read that they like a variety (I do too), but with BML they will have the same thing every night with the exception of alternation of fruit. I am not disputing as this is our first experience with them.

I use Bml.

You can still give them variety with how you serve the allowed fruits n veg.

Example

Sunday- bml, green beans, watermelon

Mon- bml, corn, apple

tues- bml, peas, grapes

weds- bml, carrots, honey dew

thurs- bml, mixed veg, blueberries

frid- bml, green beans, pitted cherries

Sat- bml, peas, watermelon

notice, no two days are the same, all the fruits n veg are on the allowed list. You CAN give the same fruit and veg for a couple days in a row but I try to not to do that for more than 3 days.


I usually always have a bag of mixed veg, a bag of peas and carrots, a bag of green beans in my freezer. Some weeks they get mixed veg for a couple days then alternate the rest of the days so they can't always pick out their favorites like corn n peas. I also keep frozen fresh blueberries and a bag of frozen cherries on hand.

I used to think that variety was important, and I tried all kinds of fruits n veg until I realized I always came back to the bml fruit n veg as they were the favorites lol.

Now, I firmly believe that consistency is much more important than variety. Feeding the same fruits n veg keeps the over all diet more consistent and balanced.

Still, every once in a while they can have exotic fruits n veg for a TREAT, treat's are in moderation and shouldn't replace their normal fruits n veg for their meal

Leela

That makes perfect sense. I am all about maintaining a balanced healthy diet diet for them. We tend to spoil our babies(pets) so it is nice to know that they can have the occasional exotic fruit/veggie as a special treat. Thanks again for your time.

your welcome I'm a sucker for exotic and ethnic foods lol so anytime I find new fruits or veg we get some to try n the gliders get some if they are safe.

Mine also gets vanilla ice cream, custard and cream cheese n parm cheese every once in a while I have one girl that will come unglued if she doesn't get a lick of mayo when I have sammiches

I used to be very anal about what treats they got, but I have lightened up about it a bunch.

when we first put gliders on the HPW diet they are slow to adjust to it.

the last 3 wouldn't touch the veggies and fruits for about a month.
they eat the HPW ok, now they eat all the hpw and they started eating the veggies, then started eating some fruits.