Posted: Fri Nov 19, 2010 2:56 amWe rescued 3 gliders last sunday. There were 2 unfixed females and one unfixed male glider. The girl we rescued them from had them in an adequate cage, but was not knowledgable at all. They were eating nothing but fruit. We have slowly introduced protein into their diet and they are doing very well now They were all slightly skinny. Also, the male and one of the females are both missing the tips of ther tails. I'm not sure, the girl said she was afraid of the male because he bit. He is very crabby. However I was wondering if anyone had seen gliders cannibilize one another when starved of protein. It looks like the tips were either chewed off or caught in something. I don't see anything in the cage they could have gotten caught in.
Their cage was also in a horrible state of uncleanliness. We actually took all their toys and sleeping pouches and transplanted them to a new cage. The old one was taken to the pressure washer...and it still didn't come clean. =0(
The other question I have is if anyone knows how to get the male to the oint where he doesn't bite. We started out giving him bits of food wich he gladly takes from our hands. Then we moved on to petting him through his sleeping pouch...he doesn't like this at all and crabs for about a minute and a half to two minutes when we start. We were thinking that we would do this for a week or so and then move to trying to pet him when he came out of the bag after that. The problem we have now is we can't even put him in a bonding pouch. He's drawn blood once. We have to use a good leather glove (don't worry, they are brand new and clean) to pick him up so he can't break the skin. We decided to try the slow pet the guy first and then work up to picking him up to put him in the bonding pouch method.
Will this ultimately work? Is there a better way? Does anyone have any hints for us?
Thank you in advance.
I feel terrible for the little gliders we picked up. The females are both regulars, but the male was a really pretty WFB. It's too bad about his tail and crabitude. Hopefully we will see some dramatic changes here shortly. The girls took to us right away...we had good food and let them out to play!!! =0) Both girls run around on us and let us pick them up after only about 5 days. The male is coming out more...but well...you've read it.
Actually I have one last question...Is there a way to trim their nails without clippint them? I don't want to stress them out to do it and they really need to be clipped. They are too long.
Thank you again.
Matt and Stacy