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Oct 21, 2010 Oct 13, 2010 My fourth. Posted by: EssikaI am getting my fourth and I'm assuming final glider tonight. He is a rescue from Toronto On. He is about 1 yr and recently lost his male companion... I'm so excited, and I'm sure that Aussie, Tazz and Nova can't wait to meet him either... although they will have to wait a bit longer than I as he has a whole host of checkups to go through and surgery to be neutered as well. I can't wait for everyone to finally meet and hopefully get along. That way my colony will be completed. I haven't even seen a picture of him, but I'm sure he is beautiful ^.^ Oct 8, 2010 More rescues come home with me. Posted by: bholland7 Friday I'm relaxing on the beach with hubby when I get a call from a friend. She wanted to know if I was interest in a few more gliders. I had her forward the email from the lady who was turning them over. I contacted her as soon as we got home that night. I found out she wanted all 5 of her gliders to be rehomed. I told her I could help her with that. We made arrangements to meet on sunday to pick them up. They are two groups. One group of two (one) neutered male and (one) female. The other group is two intact males and one female. This is a breeding pair. They were all really tame other the the older breeding female(Meeka). This couple decided to give them up due to no time to spend with them. When we got there and she showed me the gliders they had no pouches to sleep in. They also had no toys to play with. Other then that they are well fed and very healthy. I have a vet appointment on Oct. 20th to have the boys neutered. Last night the breeding pair were mating so we might get a joey or two. Sep 28, 2010 A better meal worm farm Posted by: kazkoI have had a test mealworm drawer farm up and running for some time and I think now is a good time to share it. I chose the Sterilite
29 Quart drawer for a few reasons. The drawers need to prevent insects from easily gaining access so it needs to be enclosed; no open sides. I also wanted a deeper drawer so that I could stand egg crates up on their side to experiment with density as well as methods to keep the worms from climbing up into the egg crates; beetles only.
I also wanted the ability to have multiple farms to try to time them at different points so that I always have worms. So I went with two drawers. They stack but not in a captive way, so I attached them together using rivets so that the weight of one drawer can hold the unbalanced weight of an open drawer.
In my past experimenting I found that no matter what I tried, the farm got too moist, which inevitably leads to the "three M's": (Mold, Mildew and Mites). Some folks cut lots of holes to alleviate this but then you can get insects flying in. Some will also glue in small mesh screen but I have found that only keeps out the larger insects and not the really annoying gnats, fruit flies and whatnots. And even with holes, you are still relying on convection to move air and vacate moisture, so you really need inlet holes and a good design for that to even work properly. I did it differently and have found great results so far. I installed a small 12 volt computer fan pulled from an old power supply to exhaust air from the farm. This thing is installed on the lower part of the top drawer so that it can spread the draw across the back and sides of the drawer to prevent any specific high flow areas that might pick up debris. I also drilled a lot of holes between the two drawers so that the fan could draw air from below so that both drawers get exhausted. If i were doing only a single drawer I would have used a smaller fan, smaller voltage power supply or perhaps soldered in a potentiometer so I can adjust the speed. There is just enough opening above and around the front of each drawer to allow air to seep in while still blocking bugs. Any moisture or scent that might attract bugs is now only coming from the rear of the exhaust fan which makes it impossible for them to enter. An added benefit to this is that the constantly moving air makes the farm not smell. Nothing smells anymore, not even when I pull out a drawer to work on.
Iterations of the project have taught me that there is absolutely nothing that can be done to automatically separate the beetles from the worms. If the beetles can climb, so can the worms. And strangely enough, I realized that both worms and beetles have a propensity for particular actions: the worms like to climb and the beetles like to dig. With this, I came up with something that has been working for me. First, I keep two egg crates in the worm drawer. The adult worms and fresh beetles tend to congregate on, in and under these things. The crates make it VERY easy to harvest mealworms for feeding, and they also make it easy to collect freshly hatched beetles to put into the nursery. After every harvesting, I will fully tap the crates clean of any debris so that they can collect a new clean batch of adult worms for next time. It has never been this easy.
Second, I keep a container inside the drawer with egg crate in it to allow the beetles to breed and lay eggs safely without adult worms trying to eat them all. The nursery is simply a smaller container that you keep in the drawer itself. I have been using square plastic ice cream buckets. Being in the main drawer allows the beetles to share the respired moisture created by all of the worms, and it makes it easier to service the farm. All you normally have to do is collect beetles one by one and drop into the nursery and then weed the refuse a little bit. I will take a drawer over to my bench to work on it. Every two or three days I usually first harvest a mass of worms for that night of treating, then I dust off the worm crates, collect beetles, weed the drawer and then finally feed. Dont forget to feed the farm. The beauty of the exhaust fan is that things no longer spoil the farm. It is easier to feed, but I still usually go with carrots and occasional lettuce and cooked potato leavings. Wet stuff just causes problems in a worm farm, so I choose the less moist stuff for feeding. Worms also seem to very much enjoy boring into spent corn cobs.
Harvesting beetles is easy now. You simply pluck them off of the crate, lift the nursery and you'll find a bunch, and you can dig around a little in the substrate to get a solid feeling of completion.
It is a good idea to make notes on the drawers themselves using a dry erase marker. I track when I cleaned out the drawer and nursery.
Six weeks seems to be enough time to hatch some eggs and then dump the entire contents of the nursery into the worm drawer for a refresh. The worm drawer itself may last longer or shorter depending on what you do with it. I keep mine pretty well weeded but there does come a time when you need to clean it out. The good news is that if you clean the worm drawer just before you dump the nursery into it, you dont waste any small worms. All of the worms will be of larger size and they can be screened out easily. This makes the whole idea and process of worm farm drawer cleaning easier. Sep 25, 2010 Sigh... Posted by: Efula32I am starting to think that I will never be bonded to my babies...doing everything I possibly can, and yet nothing. Sigh...maybe I should stop trying, and just do what i have been doing everyday.I love them so much... Sep 24, 2010 I've been invaded! Posted by: virtual_diverI was trying to fit an ice tray with fruit smoothie into the freezer & realized the freezer is full of glider food! The fridge is full of glider food! The cabinets are full of glider food! Does a human even live here? I did a walk through the house. Kitchen-glider kitchen, food dishes, cricket bucket, fruit bowl. Den-cage, extra bonding pouches, extra food dishes, toys. Bathroom-Toys, treats. Laundry-Pouches ready for wash. Bedroom-fleece, zippers, rings (for making toys & pouches. How can 2 little tiny gliders so disrupt a household!!! Sep 19, 2010 Sep 17, 2010 please help me im new!!! Posted by: blackattackbronteNeed help! I just got a 6 month old female. She loves to go into my hood. But she wont let me pick her up without nipping me! How do I get her to learn biting is bad and to get her to calm down when I hold her. She wont sit still.zb Sep 6, 2010 help please!! Posted by: corrabellabout a year ago i purchased a girl from ppp. it didnt take me long to realize the terrible thing i have done. i quickly got my baby on the hpw diet and she is doing great. i need some advice though.. even though my baby is happy does she need a buddy to run around with her at night and a larger cage to play in? i am not exaggerating when i say this; my baby gets no less then 5 hours of attention a day. i love her so much but i just want to make sure that she is the happiest she can be. oh and one mroe thing, does a sugar glider have to have meal worms in their entire life time or can they live on chicken as their protein. she gets chicken once a week. Sep 5, 2010 Finally Getting a Buddy Posted by: suggiemom02 Ok.. So its taken a bit of time, But i FINALLY am getting Boogie a Friend. Female, about 3 yrs old. likes to sit in ur pocket, etc. I am so excited theres not many words to describe it. Tuesday isnt THAT far away, BUT with School, and all the classes and me only looking forward to that part of my day, it will be one heck of a slow day. I cant wait to see her, and Soon have her out and after all the kinks are worked out, to have her and Boogie together. By what im told shes never really had a friend and was going into depression, so i think she needs us as much as we need her. Her cages dimensions accordingt to Jennifer are: 30x40x14 So its Decent sized but she wont be in it Forever, and around November or December They are Both going into a new Cage Intirely! So it doesnt matter. I just Hope for Good Vet check results, and Good Introduction, and Hopefully they will be best friends. :) Sep 5, 2010 Intro Posted by: 1989jeremy Wats up everybody? Well my name is Jeremy and Im a new suggie owner. I am the proud father of my two lil 8 month old girls Abby and ChiChi. I got them on August 17 from a woman off craigslit who needed to rehome them. She no longer had time for them as she trave with her husband on bussiness trips. Both are very sweet and fun to watch. Abby is a little shy and like to hide most of the time and ChiChi likes to explore and run arond. ChiChi is always stealing Abby's food even when she has her own so I feed them on on each side of the cage. When I first got them they didn't really crab they took to me pretty fast actually but I was still cautious. I tried bathroom time once but it kinda failed as ChiChi stayed on my back and head the whole time and Abby stayed under my leg till I moved her to eat then I realized she dissapeared. Aparently whoever did my bathroom sinks didnt fill a gap underneath so she climbed under the sink and wouldnt come out so i left her pouch and some treats and cut the light out and sat outside the door till she came out so that was the last time I did that, however I finally got a tent and it went great. They climbed all over me and ate. At least I know they see me as their safe point because they would rarely leave my side but they will venture to the other side of the tent but if i move or something they run back to me. Anyways I have been wanting sugar gliders since I was like 10 or 11, im 21 now and finally got them. I have done all my reasearch, as I do that with any pet Ive had and trut me ive had alot lol, I do work full time at Zaxbys and I take classes online so I have plenty of time to spend with my lil girls. I also have a 40 gal vivarium with 5 fire-bellied toads,3 fish,10 ghost shrimps, and 2 snails, and a 20 gallong with 2 leopard geckos. I got my girls last but I wish I had of gotten them first lol. Within the next month I plan to build the PVC cage for Abby an ChiChi because the cages that came with them are rather small and I want them to have alot of room. Plus sometimes next year after I've had them for a while I plan to get a male and let my lil girls have a joey and then get him nuetured. I think all animals should at least have one baby to keep their family goin. Not looking tobreed and sell just have a lil colony of my own eventually. Well I think I've wrote enough so until next time adios Sep 4, 2010 Three new gliders into care Posted by: kazkoI received Sue's three gliders
into care yesterday. All three are boys who have been neutered with poms intact. Kioko is the largest and his brother Washi has the whitest face. Shikoni is the original single glider and he seems to separate from the two often while out. I gave the cage a cleaning, put in a new pouch and some new things to explore, added a second exercise wheel, I reversed the door locks so they operate better, and I am going to put in a plastic mesh floor so they can rest easier in the cage. They seem very healthy, tame and loved. I cant wait to get to know them. First night feeding was ground turkey, mixed veggies, mixed fruit and a Leadbeater blender mix.
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