Hi there! So I just recently (about a month ago) rescued 6 gliders from a family that lost everything and they could no longer keep them- They had nowhere to go and no one would take them in. This was mentioned to me and because I have a huge heart for animals, I didn't want to see these guys end up in a corner of a sketchy pet store to sit for ages (some of the pet stores in my area look a bit shabby so...)

So now I have 6 gliders. 2 girls and 4 un-neutered males. From what I know, they had a boy and a girl at first that mated, and as a result now there's a family of 6.

They have a HUGE cage and lot hammocks and toys to play with. I'm making and feeding them the BML diet (Bourbon's Modified Leadbeaters) along with some veggies and fruits (carrots, green beans, sometimes corn since it's not the BEST, blue berries, cantaloupe, watermelon....). I chose this diet because it's easy to make and the best for my budget. With 6 gliders unfortunately it would be much too expensive to buy those little Critter Love Complete Diet baggies-They would go through those bags incredibly fast, and theyre not cheap.

I stopped feeding them so many insects because well.. They smell absolutely AWFUL.
They're in my reptile room (in which some geckos are housed and is spotless clean always) and now every time I open the door to it, I get slapped in the face with this awful musky odor that's hard to describe. I heard cleaning their cage every day will make them smell more, but I have to at least clean every other day because the smell is just overwhelming.

Is there anything I can do about this smell? Am I feeding them right? Any suggestions at all? Thank you so much!

I would get the males neutered. I hear unneutered males smell alot worse.
we have 5 males all neutered and I don't think they smell that much.
We have 7 in one cage. we sometimes go as long as a week and clean the bottom tray out. The wife will wipe down parts of cage at different times, but not to often. I walk by the cage and after a few days I can smell the cage and the tray needs empty. After I empty the tray and put in baking powder under the paper we are good for 3-4 days.
I don't think the gliders smell much at all. sophie likes to pee on me and sometimes that smells bad, and after mealworms they poo and that can smell pretty bad for a small dropping.

Cleaning cage will cause them to need to mark their territory so they will pee all over it again, making it stink more. so we just clean about 1/3 at a time.

Bml is a very widely used, good diet. Just make sure to follow the recipe exactly, no substitutions of ingredients or measurements and follow the bml fruit n veg list. http://www.bmldiet.com/ There are a lot of modified recipes of this diet so make sure you're using the most current one from the creator of the diet ( the link provided )

Neutering will def help the smell not to mention prevent inbreeding which will happen if you don't neuter.

use non scented soap/cleaners/laundry soap etc will also help. People make the mistake of thinking strong smelling stuff will help mask the odor but it only makes it worse, the gliders will mark even more to replace the scent with their own. Don't wash all the fleece items in the cage at the same time, leave a few pieces in dirty then alternate them for washing. This way some of their scent is still there and they don't tend to mark so much.

When looking for a vet to neuter, call around. If I neutered at the first place I called I would have paid $600. I found a place for $175. I neutered three gliders for less than what I would have paid for one at the other place.


Unneutered males are stinky! It does go down a lot after neutering.

Yes neutering does help and it may takea few weeks to bring those hormones down but it makes a difference I already seen a slight decreasing my Kahless stink factor ant it only been a few days ( then again I aired his cage out while at the vet so it would be less stressful than a cleaned cage when he came home.