Hello, I am new to this site so please bear with me..

I've owned adult sugar gliders for a few years but this is my first time with joeys and I have some questions.

Backstory: I bought a female sugar glider two years ago and just last year decided to get her a mate. As expected, she got pregnant. We found the babies (both males) mid February of this year (2018). We are not exactly sure when they were conceived, but by going off of timelines we read online we believe they are now 8-12 weeks OOP. They are covered in fur, have been eating solid foods, and are pooping on their own.

Issue: We decided to start the separation process from their parents today as the father is beginning to fight with them over food/territory/the mother. We did this by moving the Joeys to a separate cage and putting it right next to their parents cage so they can still see and smell them. However, the Joeys are now extremely aggressive, screaming and crabbing nonstop anytime I go near the cage. I opened the cage door to give them a snack but they got very upset and lunged at me trying to bite me when I tried to give it to them. They attacked me and the snack in my hand multiple times before realizing it was food, then they snatched it out of my hand and continued to scream. If I try to pet them/comfort them they try to bite me. I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I've handled them since they've been out of the mother's pouch so they would get used to human contact, so I'm not sure why they're suddenly being so aggressive with me. Is this normal behavior? Will it change? Is it too early to separate them? Should I put them back with their parents? Why are they attacking me? Why are they screaming when I go anywhere near them? Is there a better way to begin the separation process?? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I’m not an expert what so ever, but i saw no one has responded yet, so i thought i might give my thoughts. When i got my little Poppy, she was so so so aggressive and scared because it was her first time without her family. Maybe just give them more time, try hand feeding treats, which i understand can be difficult if they bite, but just remember this is their first time alone. :) goodluck! and i hope you get more responses soon to correct me if i’m wrong!

Are they in the pouch when your approaching them?

Sounds like they are scared, possibly pouch protective. Try Open Environment pouches for them.

Start a daily routine, same time every day do treats, talk to them when approaching the cage, bonding bag same time same time every day. Joeys are like human babies, they learn the routine quickly and will soon know all this is normal and come to expect it.

Also could be getting hormonal/sexually maturing, neutering might help. Which is probably why dad is getting more aggressive towards them. If neutered soon they could probably go back in with mom n dad with close monitoring of course. If mom n dad continue to breed the boys will fill in as babysitters to give the parents a break IF the neutering resolves dads aggression.

I wish I could help more, I've had 3 joeys here n never had that issue the only time any of the joeys crabbed was when I handed Cozig to a friend of mine.

She was fine for like 2.04 seconds, looked at me then looked at my friend looked at me again and came unglued crabbing her little face off when she realized she wasn't in my hand she was like 5 months old never heard her crab before that so it kinda shocked me lol. I took her back n settled her then tried again....... same response only a lot faster lol she's a Momma's girl through and through