Hello! I have had my sugar glider pair for about a year (one neutered male approx 2 yo and a female approx 1 yo). They are bonded, get along well and sleep in the same pouch until meal time... I feed them the "Exotic Diet" and have glider complete pellets in the cage free choice at all times. (NOT really looking for diet suggestions, they love the food and are healthy). They NEVER crab or bark until the male starts trying to guard the food. Then they will be hissing and crabbing at each other almost every night... I was feeding them in a glider kitchen until the other day when I placed the thawed food cubes in the kitchen, the male entered first then the female, and he attacked her and it turned into a full on fight... I had to reach in and open the kitchen to separate them and she hid in her pouch until he was done eating :( I have been scared to use the kitchen at this point because I want her to easily be able to escape if he becomes territorial over the food. Now I have been putting the food in separate bowls on opposite ends of the cage. I have not seen any more physical fights, but the male is continuing the aggressive behavior and crabbing/hissing. I have increased the portion thinking maybe they would realize there is plenty of food for both of them, but nothing has changed. He is a very healthy weight, but she seems to be a bit thin :( Once he is full, he goes in the pouch and she eats, but it seems like a dominance thing that he has to eat first... suggestions!? I am tempted to separate them (possibly get them new cage mates as well?) because of the female seems to be more thin than usual... she is still healthy and active, just not as filled out. They are both so sweet... the male is super friendly and outgoing. She is super sweet but more shy and docile and easily bullied :( Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you!

Usually separate feeding stations does the trick. Do you have a kitchen scale so you can keep an eye on her weight? She may just have a smaller build than the male, but if she is losing weight that is not good.

Maybe put one food station up high and the other at the bottom?

Ok this may sound a little more blunt than I'm intending so please bare with me.

1. You may not be looking for diet suggestions, but you may get them anyway and there will be a reason for it.

What exactly are you feeding them, what is the recipe? what fruits n veg?

"( I have been scared to use the kitchen at this point because I want her to easily be able to escape if he becomes territorial over the food."

2 there is no IF about it, the male is already being aggressive.

3 I disagree about it being a dominance thing. I would almost bet money it's either a nutritional thing, or a medical thing. I would recommend taking them in for a wellness exam and fecals to rule out parasites.

4 if the female is losing weight, it could either be a medical issue, parasites, or the diet your following.


I just worked with a girl that was feeding a diet her pair were eating very well but the male started becoming food aggressive to the female. The gliders always seemed hungry even though she was giving them more food than most people feed.

She was feeding eggs, fruit n veg and grape juice. Every night for some time.
Her female was showing signs of being lethargic and dehydrated.

We had her change her diet to bml. The first night on bml the male grouched at her twice when he thought the food was gone. As soon as he realized there was more he stopped. The second night, there was no aggression or grouching at all both nights they ate off the same plate together at the same time with no issue.

Their bodies were lacking nutrients that their previous diet was not providing enough of. Once their bodies got the full blown benefits of the nutrients in the bml the aggression stopped. The first two nights she only fed bml. nothing else. And still there was no more aggression.

The third night she added the fruits and veg along with the bml, the gliders are eating off the same plate at the same time with absolutely no issues what so ever.

So, even though your not "asking" for diet suggestions, my suggestion is to get them on a better diet that provides what their current one is lacking. Sometimes just moving dishes or adding additional feeding stations is not enough, look past the obvious and find the issue.

Just my two cents...

quote:

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Originally posted by Leela

Ok this may sound a little more blunt than I'm intending so please bare with me.

1. You may not be looking for diet suggestions, but you may get them anyway and there will be a reason for it.

What exactly are you feeding them, what is the recipe? what fruits n veg?

"( I have been scared to use the kitchen at this point because I want her to easily be able to escape if he becomes territorial over the food."

2 there is no IF about it, the male is already being aggressive.

3 I disagree about it being a dominance thing. I would almost bet money it's either a nutritional thing, or a medical thing. I would recommend taking them in for a wellness exam and fecals to rule out parasites.

4 if the female is losing weight, it could either be a medical issue, parasites, or the diet your following.


I just worked with a girl that was feeding a diet her pair were eating very well but the male started becoming food aggressive to the female. The gliders always seemed hungry even though she was giving them more food than most people feed.

She was feeding eggs, fruit n veg and grape juice. Every night for some time.
Her female was showing signs of being lethargic and dehydrated.

We had her change her diet to bml. The first night on bml the male grouched at her twice when he thought the food was gone. As soon as he realized there was more he stopped. The second night, there was no aggression or grouching at all both nights they ate off the same plate together at the same time with no issue.

Their bodies were lacking nutrients that their previous diet was not providing enough of. Once their bodies got the full blown benefits of the nutrients in the bml the aggression stopped. The first two nights she only fed bml. nothing else. And still there was no more aggression.

The third night she added the fruits and veg along with the bml, the gliders are eating off the same plate at the same time with absolutely no issues what so ever.

So, even though your not "asking" for diet suggestions, my suggestion is to get them on a better diet that provides what their current one is lacking. Sometimes just moving dishes or adding additional feeding stations is not enough, look past the obvious and find the issue.

Just my two cents...

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Well, I am aware he is already being aggressive, hence the post and removal of the glider kitchen... not sure what you're trying to accomplish with that comment, but I do appreciate your input and suggestions.

The diet I feed them is called The Pet Glider Exotic Diet. They each get a cube thawed at night and I sprinkle a multivitamin w/ calcium made for gliders on top and a few mealworms per each bowl. Plus they have the glider complete pellets in the cage at all times that they snack on.

Copied from the site, this is the recipe I use. (I vary the fruits/veggies each month. They are all organic from my garden then frozen. I use eggs from my chickens as the protein.):

"The Pet Glider Exotic Diet also referred to as The Priscilla Price Diet (Sometimes abbreviation as The PP diet, not to be confused with the Pocket Pets Diet), The Exotic Diet, and the Pet Glider Nutrition System was created by Priscilla Price, owner of the large sugar glider breeding company; The Pet Glider. The diet uses "The Pet Glider Complete" Multivitamin supplement which can only be found on their website and has no published nutritional analysis available to the public.
Ingredients:
8 ounces Fruit (Minimum of four different fresh or frozen fruits, no canned fruits.) 8 ounces Vegetables (Minimum of four different fresh or frozen items, no canned vegetables.) 6 ounces Plain Non-Fat Yogurt 3 ounces Calcium Fortified Orange Juice 2-3 ounces Uncooked Oatmeal (Use five minute regular oats, not quick cooking.) 32 ounces Applesauce (Unsweetened is best.) 6 ounces Protein (Low-fat choices such as: chicken, ground turkey, eggs, etc.) 1 tablespoon Ground Flax Seed or Wheat Germ (Optional)
Directions:
Finely chop your fruits and vegetables. We recommend using a food processor. If you do not have one, make sure you chop your fruits and vegetables into small pieces. Remember the size of the animal you are preparing food for.
2. Cook your protein – chicken, turkey, or eggs.
3. In a large bowl, put all ingredients except the oatmeal and stir vigerously. You want to make sure all ingredients have been incorporated and mixed thoroughly.
4. Depending on the thickness of your mix, add oatmeal. You do not want a runny or too thick of a mix, but one that has the consistency of a cake mix.
5. You will want to divide the mixture in smaller containers to freeze. Here are some recommendations
a. Use ice cube trays. Measure two tablespoons of the mixture into the individual ice cube holes. After they have frozen, you can pop them out, put them in a freezer bag, then into a plastic freezer container and take out to thaw on a daily basis to feed your babies. You also have the option to feed the portions frozen because they do thaw quickly.
b. Or you can divide your mixture into 10 smaller containers and freeze. Each container will last 2 gliders for 3 days. You would not want to divide your mixture into larger containers because you want the mixture to be fresh. You do not want the mixture to be in the refrigerator longer than 3 days.
6. Sprinkle your multi-vitamin with calcium on top of the food your serve each day. Use 1/8th teaspoon of vitamins per sugar glider. Always keep your multi-vitamins with calcium powder in the refrigerator, but do not freeze.
Feed Nightly Per Glider: 1.5 Tablespoons of The Pet Glider Exotic Diet .5 to 1-2 Tablespoons Premium Cereal (Keep in habitat at all times, replace any leftover cereal with fresh cereal.)
Treats: No more than 10-12 medium sized mealworms per glider daily."

The reason I was not specifically asking for diet advice is because I've done extensive research on diet and found that this diet works great with my first set of gliders who I rescued from poor conditions and a crappy diet. They are happy and healthy today and I've had them now almost 5 years. This is just my first experience with food aggression. I am absolutely not opposed to trying something new. I just know there is a lot of varying opinions on diet and I don't want to totally switch them if that is truly not the issue. I am going to take your suggestion to them to the vet first though just to ensure their health and see what she thinks!

Thanks for your response.

quote:

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Originally posted by jdching

Maybe put one food station up high and the other at the bottom?

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Great idea. I will try this. Thank you!

quote:

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Originally posted by jdching

Usually separate feeding stations does the trick. Do you have a kitchen scale so you can keep an eye on her weight? She may just have a smaller build than the male, but if she is losing weight that is not good.

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I never thought of using a kitchen scale to weigh her. Great idea. I will do this and start keeping track. Also I am taking them both into the vet to see what she thinks. Thanks for the response! :)

Ok, Tpg isn't my fav diet but it is a well known one and not a random kitchen sink diet like the other girl was feeding.

I don't bash the diet and really don't get into big diet debates despite how my last post sounded I'm pretty sure it probably sounded like I was going to get into some heated debate about diets lol that wasn't my intention. But sometimes people are feeding a modified recipe or kitchen sink diet that is just not enough and that can cause food aggression.

If you printed off or copied the recipe longer than 2 months ago I will suggest revisiting the Tpg site and making a new copy, they have changed the recipe slightly.

Usually if there is a change in a recipe it's because over time it proved to have to much of something or not enough of something. Some people have chosen to stay with the old recipe, some changed to the new one, and a lot jumped ship and changed diets completely. Really the choice is yours, but I do still recommend referring back to the diet creators site occasionally in case they have made changes to the recipe, that's for any of the recipe diets not just tpg.

Are you using the vitamin sprinkles with the diet religiously ??

Sometimes people don't realize the importance of the vitamins with tpg and skip them altogether. This diet would then be very unbalanced and they definately wouldn't be getting what they need nutritionally from just the food.

If you ARE using the vitamins for tpg, are you sure they are eating it? or could they be eating around it?

Even though you may be offering it as directed they might not be eating enough of it to provide what their bodies need. ( this is one of the reasons it's not my fav diet )

Because the vitamins are sprinkled on top usually , it is not evenly distributed throughout the staple, gliders can very easily eat around the vitamins. Where as in bml, the vitamins and calcium is combined and blended with the other ingredients so it's distributed evenly through the entire batch, they can't just eat around it.

Again, not bashing the diet just explaining what can and does happen even when following the diet exactly to see if maybe it is playing a part with your gliders situation.

The other thing with the sprinkles, it might make it harder to do more than two feeding stations. Because each feeding station will need the vitamins and both gliders need access to a food station that has them. Just somethin to keep in mind...


I def would suggest having fecals done. Now with tpg there is bee pollen in the vitamin sprinkles, I don't know if the bee pollen is ground up or in the little pollen nugget form. So, make sure to mention to the vet and vet tech there is bee pollen in the diet when they do the fecals. Bee pollen can give a false read for parasites, especially if the vet doesn't know bee pollen is in their diet.

Weighing is a great idea to keep track of their weights, even start a weight journal with dates time and weight for each of them to keep track and see any major changes quicker.

Try to weigh them at the same time every time you weigh them. I usually weigh around 1 pm that has given them plenty of time to digest what ever food they ate before going to bed, I don't give snacks before weighing either they get some after. This way the weights are a little more consistent, which is generally what you want when you are tracking weights.

I hope this post is a lil less blunt and more helpful.