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Sugar Gliders
Hand Biting... But Not Scared Or Irritated
Hand Biting... But Not Scared Or Irritated
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May 28 2020
09:11:45 AM
Hi Everyone! This is my first post here.

We recently adopted 3 Sugar Gliders for my daughter's birthday present about a month ago. We are really loving these little guys and the bonding process has come surprisingly quick and easy. We spend a lot of time with them!

One of our gliders named Luna is about 7 month old now and she is very social, fearless and probably the most curious of the bunch. As soon as we open the cage she is the first to come out of the pouch and want to climb on us and come out of the cage.

She has a bad habit I can't figure out though... She'll be crawling all over us happy as can be then will find our hands and bite them like crazy!

First she'll sniff them, then give them a little test nibble and then goes into full out gnawing on our fingers until we end up bleeding.

I'm not sure if she is testing them and thinks they are food? She is definitely not scared or irritated when doing this.

Does anyone have any ideas on why she might be doing this? We usually blow on her and redirect her to crawl up our arm and away from our hands when she starts biting and it does actually stop her... but is there a way to stop her from this behavior in the long run?

Any suggestions or info would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
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May 28 2020
07:45:05 PM
BYK_Chainsaw Fuzzy Wuzzy Visit BYK_Chainsaw's Photo Album BYK_Chainsaw's Journal USA 1301 Posts
I would thoroughly wash my hands with unscented soap. so many people used
some type of scented soap she may be confused and think your hand is food. you say adopted so if they are rehomed, maybe they are used to eating a treat out of someones hands, and they think they are getting some food.

or they could be doing some type of grooming, mine do it on my arm, find a nice
spot, start to groom gently then go full on hard groom, if left alone they will start to break skin and make me bleed.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vO3PcmSh55I&t=3s
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Jun 01 2020
01:13:21 PM
Mr Dude Starting Member 2 Posts
Thanks so much for the feedback! I think it was a combination of the scented soap we were using and the treat feeding by hand.

We stopped using the scented soap and it got a lot better!

Hand Biting... But Not Scared Or Irritated

GliderGossip GliderGossip
Sugar Gliders
Hand Biting... But Not Scared Or Irritated