Yesterday I ended up with a pair of gliders unexpectedly. I was preparing to buy gliders anyway so I had already collected a wheel and toys, and half built a cage. I didn't buy a diet supplement yet because I was planning to use whatever the gliders I bought were on.

I live in a large apartment building, over 200 apartments. I've been here for 11 years so I know the staff well. They know I keep a "home zoo", I used to keep an African Grey parrot so they call me the Bird Lady. Unfortunately, all too often people move out and deliberately leave their pets behind. The landlord used to call the local animal control to remove them, but their funding has been cut back and it can take them up to a week to respond. So they come and see me whenever there are small birds or exotics left behind. I catch them and then either adopt them myself if I have room, or I keep them until animal services can come and pick them up, or I rehome them. They found the gliders sleeping in a pile of old clothes in a corner while they were cleaning out a trashed apartment, and thought they were chipmunks. There was no sign of food, water, a cage or anything else for them. One started crabbing and lunging as soon as I approached.

So, long story short, I have these two little ones. They appear healthy, their coats are smooth. One looks overweight though. I'm pretty sure they're male and female. I have no idea of their age or what they're used to eating. Unfortunately I live in the Canadian wilderness (Toronto) where it's nearly impossible to get items an American would take for granted, and at three times the price. The only local seller of HPV supplement only sells a year's supply, and I can't afford that at the moment. I was unable to find any Canadian online vendors, which means paying two to three times the value of the parcel in shipping and customs fees. I looked into TPG which is available locally, but its diet requires monkey biscuits, which I can't get (pet monkeys are illegal here, and the only Canadian supplier is out of stock). Shipping fees from the US are outrageous, you'd think they're sending it by sled dog or something. It also takes 2 weeks or more for the item to arrive here.

Questions:
- Is there any recipe or diet that I can use temporarily which DOES NOT require any of the "accepted" vitamin/protein supplements? I would use it only until I can get a proper supplement.
- Are there any alternative multivitamin supplements that would work temporarily? I have Reptivite but I know it's not good for them. I also have powdered human calcium/D3, and Kaytee Exact hand feeding formula for birds.
- for the TPG is there any alternative to monkey biscuits, preferably something I can find in the grocery store? I was thinking of nutritional biscuits for babies as an example.
- Would it be a good idea to give them a liquid baby nutritional supplement like Pediasure? Or perhaps a fortified baby cereal?

In the meantime, last night I gave them some mixed fruit (papaya, mango, blueberry) and some of my homemade plain organic yogurt, and they ate most of it. Tonight they're getting boiled button quail eggs and mixed veg, I'm going to pick up some baby cereal today and give them a bit of that as well.

sounds like a good start, you can look into the bml diet until your able to get the other items unless you find it easier to acquire the items lol.. I hope that they not been too long on their own or gotten into any kind of pesticide.. I would also consider a vet check asap to help make sure your 2 dont become 4 in a short order if your not well prepped. also can;'t you have a friend ship you the items ( like critter love marked as a gift to avoid the customs issues?? just asking I know a lot of people have done that when they send packages international...

what I would do
go to critterlove website look up salads, I would go with 4.

www.critterlove.com/salad-mixtures

buy large bag of frozen peas, green beans, mix veggies, berries, butternut squash (frozen if you can get them.) mix these up in the portion sizes from critterlove.
you DON'T HAVE TO USE HER AMOUNTS just the right percentages. so ....
peas 400g green beans 350g berries 400g can all be mixed in equal amounts, 1 cup or 2 cups you pick. lets say 1 cup. so then add mixed veggies at half that amount or 1/2 cup. then add 3/4 cup of butternut squash (300g). I would cut up beets and add to mix in the same amount as mix veggies, mix this up and freeze.

1/3 way home.

buy apples, pears (if larger amount you will need to freeze, pears go bad in 3 days in my house). I buy papaya or mango instead of kiwi or passion fruit.
I cut this up and freeze. I put seasonal greens in a bag and freeze also.

then each night about 8 to 9 pm I put some of this in a bowl and feed to gliders, usually frozen, it defrosts pretty fast.

2/3 way home.

last you need to figure out your protein. I would recommend OHPW, but you need wombaroo and raw honey. or you could buy from critterlove and make up their stuff, it is almost the same as OHPW.
wombaroo at www.thepamperedglider.com/supplements.htm

250 gram box is $16 and will last 2 gliders a long time. the honey is alittle expensive but the bee pollen and eggs is cheap.

If you want more information let me know.

but that is my gliders dinner, frozen veggies with frozen fruit and OHPW protein powder. with 2 gliders is not to costly as most supplies not to expensive and will last a long time. I have 11 gliders so cost are much higher.

I feed my gliders TPG and they have been doing exceptionally well. I did buy the monkey biscuits, but they are not a requirement for the diet. They are a nice treat and help with dental health. TPG does require their vitamins, and I don't know if you can substitute herpavite and repcal. If not, you could possibly order them if they aren't too expensive for you https://www.thepetglider.com/collections/sugar-glider-vitamins

Otherwise, all the ingredients for TPG you can get at the market. I leave out pellets at all times, and I also get those at the above website.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice!

I'm glad I don't need monkey biscuits for TPG after all. I bought them some baby biscuits that contain nothing but rice and mixed vegetables. I gave them some bits yesterday and they seem to like it. The biscuits are hard and crispy (like rice crackers) so I think they'd give their teeth a workout. I'm going to order some of the TPG powder and buy the other ingredients.

One helpful trend is health drinks and smoothies, now you can find premixes of frozen fruits and vegetables ready for the blender. My local grocery chain now even features frozen beet chunks, as well as protein powder made from crickets! That powder might come in handy as a protein supplement, especially if you can't get live insects. Anyway, I bought a mixed bag with papaya, mango and pineapple which the suggies seem to like.

I've spent many hours researching the various diets, and was getting frustrated because almost all have an obligatory ingredient that's not available in Canada, with no substitutions available either. Often the US sites that carry these items (including Amazon.com) don't ship to Canada. Yet there are plenty of Canadian sugar glider owners and they must be getting their supplements somewhere.

Maybe someday we could create a thread with listings of where to get food items and supplements outside of the US, or acceptable substitute items that are available in the person's home country. A baseline nutrition chart would also be helpful for those looking for nutritional equivalents. We may already have one here, I'll check. I'm going to start gathering information over time, but right now since I'm new to keeping sugar gliders I don't feel qualified to provide dietary recommendations.

Speaking of new - this morning I went to pick up the glider kitchen from the cage. I picked it up by the "top" and immediately the lid fell off, spraying food bits all over the cage and defeating the purpose of having a glider kitchen in the first place. Time to get containers with locking lids.

"blender" be careful with a blender. gliders don't eat all of the veggies.
they leave outside shell of peas and green beans. they use teeth and jaws to squeeze out the stuff they want to eat then spit out a half moon shaped of stuff they dont want. blending up veggies can cause them to eat stuff they don't want to eat or stuff that is hard on the digestion system.

No worries about the blender, I just meant that the frozen fruit mixes are designed for the buyer to throw in the blender to make smoothies. The most I ever use when I'm preparing fruit and veg for my menagerie is a little pulse food chopper, mainly for the small birds. Actually I gave the gliders sugar snap peas in the pod last night (along with other veg). I chopped the pods into quarter inch lengths. This morning I found empty pod slices but the peas were all gone. I try to give them small chunks in different shapes with skin on whenever possible, just to make their food more natural and interesting.

Today I dug out my former parrot's favourite foraging toy. It's a hanging set of four little clear plastic cups which have lids and are strung on chains with beads, through an X of PVC pipe so it acts like two pulleys. I hung it from the top of the cage for tonight. Out of curiosity I put a mealworm in each of two of the cups to see what would happen. A minute or two later, two little scamps had emerged from their pouch and were hanging upside down on the arms of the "X", busy trying to figure out how to get at those worms. It didn't take too long, though all the cups had to be carefully inspected. I'll have to post instructions on how to make one of these, it's an ingenious little toy and you can throw it in the dishwasher to clean it.

steamer bags are great we use them and add to the mix. ( last night was a cheat night) they got chicken veggies and some pear slices with their hpw go mix

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Originally posted by mechnut450

steamer bags are great we use them and add to the mix. ( last night was a cheat night) they got chicken veggies and some pear slices with their hpw go mix

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I haven't seen steamer bags in years, but it's a good idea.

So far I've been giving them raw, finely chopped veggies, is it better to cook them? I'm thinking about hard things like root vegetables.

I've been giving them baby food "chicken with broth" and they seem to like that. Will they eat seafood (shrimp, mussel, squid, fish) or is it best to stick with chicken or dairy for their protein?

The first night I gave them a tiny separate dish of plain yogurt and another dish with frozen/thawed fruit. They cleaned up the yogurt of course, and ate at least half of the fruit.

Last night, I tried mixing the yog with the fruit, thinking they'd eat everything that way. Wrong. This morning I found a dish of sparkling clean, untouched fruit.

I ordered the TPG powder last night, hopefully I'll have it by the end of the week since it's from a local supplier. I'm planning to use this recipe since it's dated this year:

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Edit to the last post - I didn't notice that the link I posted didn't work until now. Here it is again (I hope):

TPG recipe I'm using

Looks like your headed in the right direction. Good luck with your new fur babies