THE BASIC CARE OF SUGAR GLIDERS


Common Names: Sugar Glider
Latin Name: Petaurus breviceps
Origin: New Guinea. North & Eastern Australia
Adult Size: 11 inches
Life Expectancy: 14 Years
Food Requirements: Fruit, nectar, proprietary insectile mixture, at least one variety of live food

Natural History
Almost totally nocturnal. They nest by day in tree hollows. Like all marsupials the Sugar Glider has a pouch in which 1-2 young are reared. Gestation is a little over 2 weeks, the young weighing less than 0.2g at birth. Young first release the nipple at about 1 1/2 months and leave the pouch for the first time after 2 months or so. It is usually 3 1/2 - 4 months before the young leave the nest by which time they are independent of their parents. Longevity is recorded as being up to 14 years. As there name implies Sugar Glider use their membranes to glide from tree to tree. Sugar Glider are omnivorous feeding on insects, small vertebrates, eggs, sap, flowers and seed.

Captive Care
Sugar Glider are very gregarious and any number can be kept together. Facilities should be made available for them to fly either in their enclosure or in a room. They have proven to be an extremely popular pet in the USA where single individuals are kept as family pets. The species is extremely easy to tame and will cling tenaciously to a human hand. We keep ours in three separate colonies and make no attempt to tame them, never the less, when sold in pairs they invariably tame readily with more individual attention Sugar Gliders are probably the most adorable exotic pet to have been made available in the past twenty years.
Nest boxes should always be available along with suitable nesting materials such as hay and kapok. We provide our breeding colonies with a wide choice of foods based each day on 5-6 varieties of fruit, nectar, proprietary insectile mixture, at least one variety of live food and occasionally items such as digestive biscuits, rodent mixture and scrambled egg.