Obesity in Gliders: Detection and Prevention

Written by: TMarie - GA Owner/Admin

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Keeping my animals healthy is always a worry of mine. I do not think any sugar glider owner can avoid the talk of the best ways to keep a sugar glider healthy. That seems to be the biggest topic of discussion. Use this diet. Use that diet. You have to have so many hours of playtime a day or your glider can go crazy and become depressed. Never feed this food. Always feed this food. It begins to take a toll on you. Either you become totally over obsessed with the weight of your sugar glider or you avoid it all together. Everyone tries their best to have the perfect sugar glider and heaven forbid theirs become overweight. What if it cannot be prevented though? What if that glider you take in ends up being at risk of health issues due to their weight? This became a problem I have had to overcome in the past year, and this article is based on my experiences. I hope it gives you some ideas to try in order to help your glider be happier and healthier too.

Last year I bought a pair of adult sugar gliders from another person. They were no longer able to keep them due to extenuating circumstances. The male was always a little on the heavier side, and the female was always tiny. When I first took them into my home, I questioned whether they were healthy or not, and was assured they were always this way. I figured the male was just a bit of your average “couch potato” and let it slide.

He began to become increasingly more overweight however. After I had him for approximately 10 months, it was time for the annual glider checkups. At over twice the size of a normal adult male sugar glider, my vet was amazed that he was still alive and in such good spirits. He was healthy as far as she could see, but definitely was concerned the weight would become an issue later on if an attempt was not made to correct it. We began doing various procedures to see if we could get him to lose some weight. When we started this task, the sugar glider was at 6 ounces which is absolutely huge.

The first thing we tried was to exercise him more. I would take him out and make him play with a feather teaser and run in an exercise ball for at least two hours straight every night. At first he was very lazy and reluctant. However, as time went on, he ended up exercising a little more, but not much.

I contemplated a diet for both of them, but was not able to due to the female being so small. Less food would not work for the same reason either. That and we figured out that the male could not be hogging the food bowl, so overeating was not an issue. Every morning, the food bowls still had food in them, which indicated that he was not blocking the female from eating.

With none of these working very well, my vet recommended the only other option we had available to us. It was a complex plan that involved a lot of monitoring and even separate cages. This was a two month project. Both gliders were to have separate cages. However, to rule out loneliness and depression, they would have to be together as much as possible. During the day when I was at work, the two would be sleeping together in a cage with only a staple food since neither got up during the day. If I was allowed to bring them with me where I went, I did. At feeding time, I would put them back in separate cages. The female was fed the normal Suncoast diet. The male was fed a low fat and carbohydrate diet that cut out all corn, peas, insects, applesauce, and anything else that was high in fat. The main thing he was fed was eggs, tuna, berries, and the insectivore fare staple food. He was also fed smaller amounts.

I would take them both out for playtime together. At night, when I went to bed, they were in separate cages for the night.

I continued this for two months and monitored them very carefully. I recorded their food intake and their weights and overall moods. They missed each other some, but I had them together as much as I possibly could. After the two months were up, the male dropped from 6 ounces down to 4 ounces. This is a loss of over 50 grams. He was still overweight but much better.

At this point, I reunited the two and continued to monitor them. I fed the highest fat and carbohydrate foods while I had the male out for his own special playtime so that the female could fill up on that before he was back in the cage.

It is now currently 15 months since I have had them and 5 months since I started this routine. The male is down to the size of most of my males (approximately 3.5 ounces) and shows no real signs of being overweight at all. He still hates to exercise on his own, but I take care of that part for him.

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