Feeding Your Sugar Glider Part 1

The topic of sugar glider nutrition is extremely important. Ideally, in order to thrive, your glider would get a balanced diet that mimics the mix of food and nutrients he or she would get in the wild. However, there has not been a lot of research on the optimal glider diet, and most people do not live where they can reproduce the diet available to sugar gliders in Australia. And recently, some sugar glider experts have increased the recommended protein percentage from about 25% to about 40-50% (50% for breeding females especially).

There is no agreement on one single diet that is perfect for sugar gliders. So the golden rule is to provide a rotating variety of foods with the proper nutritional balance and follow the stream of new information as it arrives (join sugar glider forums, read newsletters, etc.).

A corollary of the golden rule is to avoid giving junk food. Just because sugar gliders love sweet stuff does not mean you should ever give them candy or other sweets! You should never feed them raw sugar, sugar substitutes, candy or chocolate.

Another rule for new sugar glider owners: if you’re not sure if a food is nutritious for your sugar glider, don’t feed it that food. Research the food and ask other sugar glider owners for their opinions. Then draw your own conclusions and introduce any new food slowly.

The bad news is that you can’t just go out to the pet store and buy a commercial chow and assume your glider will thrive. In that sense, they are not as easy to take care of as dogs and cats are. The good news is that there is lots of information on glider nutrition available, and certain requirements area well-known and agreed-upon.

In the wild, the sugar glider diet consists of insects and arachnids (spiders), nectar, pollen, tree sap and gums (from eucalyptus and acacia trees), manna, and honeydew. Protein is supplied primarily through the consumption of insects, moths, beetles, pollen and occasional small birds and other vertebrates. Their diet varies with the seasons. During the spring and summer months, gliders are mostly insectivorous, and during the winter months, they eat gum from the eucalyptus and acacia trees, as well as sap and sugar from the trees and sap-sucking insects.

The basic diet for sugar gliders follows this simple plan: Protein Source + Fruits & Vegetables + a Nutritional Supplement + fresh water.

In captivity, sugar gliders are fed mostly fruits, vegetables, meat, eggs, insects and sometimes rodents and dairy products. There is some discussion about whether sugar gliders are lactose-intolerant, although their “mother’s milk” does have lactose in it. Most breeders recommend that you do not feed cow’s milk or goat’s milk to your sugar glider. Many of them, however, feed yogurt to their sugar gliders with no problem. The general rule about dairy products is this: feed small amounts of dairy products to start. If your glider gets diarrhea or other symptoms from it, then stop. Most breeders recommend that you avoid giving cheese to your sugar glider, because it may cause intestinal binding.

(To be continued…)

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