Do sugar gliders eat lettuce

What Do Sugar Gliders Eat? A Complete Guide

While sugar gliders live off the food they find in their natural habitat, it can be challenging for their owners to replicate this type of diet. So what do sugar gliders eat in captivity? In short, a balanced diet can include:

• Selected fresh fruits and vegetables
• Nectar or sap mixture
• Boiled eggs
• Insects
• Frozen drops of yogurt
• Sugar glider pellets or kibble

In this post, we will discuss the type of food sugar gliders can have, the type of food they should not eat, as well as some ideas for homemade recipes for your furry friends.

List Of Fruits And Vegetables Your Sugar Glider Can Eat

Here is a comprehensive list of the most common fruits and vegetables your sugar gliders can eat. These are available from most continents so you should be covered wherever you live. The latter part of the chart gives you a list of food your sugar glider should avoid.

Sugar Gliders Eat a Variety of Foods

In the wild, sugar gliders eat a varied diet of fruit, vegetables, insects, and tree sap. In captivity, you should try to recreate this diet as much as possible.

Although sugar gliders enjoy sweet foods, some types of sweets may impact their health. While fresh fruit is a common part of the glider diet, canned fruit contains refined sugar that is dangerous for your pet.

Yet without a proper diet, sugar gliders may suffer from health complications, including metabolic bone disease. For the most part, sugar gliders eat a combination of the following foods:

• selected fruits and vegetables (see list above)
• proteins (found in eggs or insects)
• home-made nectar mixtures.

For this reason, some vets recommend a three-part diet. One-third of the diet contains kibble, one-third contains a nectar mixture, and the final third contains a variety of fresh produce and insects.

The kibble or pellets are commercial sugar glider foods and are available at some specialty pet stores. Depending on where you live, you may need to buy the food online. These foods are specially formulated to meet the nutritional needs of your pet, but its not the only thing that they should eat.

Preparing a nectar mixture for your sugar glider

The nectar mixtures help recreate the sweet sap that gliders suckout of trees in the wild. Making your own nectar only requires a fewingredients:

• 1/2 cup of warm water
• 1/2 cup of raw honey
• 1/2 cup of baby cereal
• 1 hard-boiled egg
• 1 teaspoon sugar glider vitamin supplement

Here is how to prepare it: combine everything except the baby cereal in a blender. Blend until pureed. Slowly add the baby cereal and continue mixing until you have a smooth nectar mixture.

Then, along with the kibble and nectar, feed your pet various treats, such as frozen drops of yogurt, insects, and chopped fruits and veggies. Sugar gliders tend to love fruits and vegetables, which also provide healthy doses of important vitamins.

As shown in the chart above, the range of available fruits and vegetables is wide, the most commonly used in the US being:

• Apples
• Bananas
• Carrots
• Figs
• Grapefruit
• Mangoes
• Peaches
• Pears
• Pineapples
• Sweet potatoes

Remember, use insects and foods with high oxalate levels sparingly as treats. Food such as pears, beets, and figs can limit calcium absorption, while insects contain high-fat contents.

What Are the Dos and Donts of Feeding a Sugar Glider?

Buying the right food for your glider is a good step toward feeding it a balanced diet, but you also need to ensure that it doesnt overeat or that it only eats the sweet stuff. Along with providing a variety of foods, follow these sugar glider diet tips:

• Feed your glider in the morning and evening: Your gliders may eat most of their meals in the evening when they wake up and again in the morning before they become less active for the rest of the day. To avoid giving your glider too much of one food, feed a separate meal in the morning and evening.

• Leave a small bowl of dry glider food at night: During the night when youre asleep, your glider may get hungry. Leave a small bowl of dry glider food, such as kibble, at night.

• Remove leftover food after feeding: Then in the morning, remove the leftover food. You should also remove leftover food from the morning meal at some point during the day.

• Wash out the food dish each day: After removing the food, wash out the food dish to prevent it from developing any mold growth or bacteria.

• Always cut fruit and veggies into small pieces: When preparing fruit and vegetables, its also a good idea to cut the produce into very small chunks. Sugar gliders have very small mouths, and chopping the food makes it easier for them to eat.

• Change up the foods with each feeding: You should also change up their meals with each feeding, ensuring that they get a variety of foods. For example, if you add carrots to a meal one day, use a different fruit the next day. If you add live insects one day, use a hard-boiled egg for protein the next day.

• Try placing the food dish high in the cage: In the wild, sugar gliders do most of their foraging from trees. To recreate their natural habitat, try positioning the food dish toward the upper part of the cage. This also reduces the chance of the glider accidentally urinating or defecating on the food dish.

How Much Does a Sugar Glider Eat in One Day?

Sugar gliders are small animals and only eat about 15% to 20% of their body weight each day. As an adult glider only weighs a little over 4 ounces (113g), it may only eat about 0.6 to 0.8 ounces per day (17g to 23g). So after one to two tablespoons, your pet may not want any more food for the day. However, some gliders keep eating if you leave food in the dish.

In fact, overfeeding is a common problem. As sugar gliders only require up to two tablespoons of food per day, its easy to provide much more food than your pets need. Overeating leads to obesity, which increases the risk of health problems.

Your glider needs a mixture of protein, calcium, and vitamins. To get the right nutrients, some sugar glider owners stick to a combination of 50% protein, 25% fruit, and 25% vegetables.

However, this makes it difficult to factor in kibble and nectar, which also contain important nutrients, so the one-third rule is easier to follow. One-third of your gliders diet should include kibble, one-third should include nectar, and everything else can fit into the final third.

What Foods Are Harmful to Sugar Gliders?

Sugar gliders are naturally curious animals. If you put food in its dish, it will likely try to eat it, especially if it has a sweet smell and taste. Some of the foods that your sugar glider needs to avoid include:

• Refined sugar
• Raw meat or raw eggs
• Seeds
• Fruit pits
• Canned fruit
• Chocolate
• Insects found outdoors

By the same token, avoid all refined sugar and processed foods. This includes canned fruit, candy, and sweets. You dont need to feed human food to your exotic pet.

Fruit, vegetables, insects, and nuts are foods commonly found in a sugar glider diet, but you need to be careful. These foods are beneficial in small amounts but potentially deadly in large quantities.

Nuts and insects have a lot of fat, as do some fruits and vegetables, such as avocados and sweet potatoes. So its important to avoid feeding too much fat to your sugar gliders, as it increases the risk of obesity.

You should also be careful with meat and eggs. Raw foods increasethe chance of contamination and salmonella.

An Improper Sugar Glider Diet May Lead to Health Issues

Digestive problems, such as diarrhea, may occur when your pet gets too much lactose from dairy products. While small drops of frozen yogurt can provide beneficial protein and probiotics, too much may lead to digestive issues.

If you notice diarrhea in the cage, give a glucose supplement to your sugar glider. Watered Gatorade tends to work well. Glucose helps reduce the risk of dehydration caused by diarrhea. Continue to monitor your gliders health, and, hopefully, the illness will pass.

Another key point is that a lack of proper nutrition may also lead to calcium deficiency, which is one of the most common health problems for sugar gliders. With a calcium deficiency, sugar gliders may develop nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism (NSHP).

Calcium deficiencies occur either due to a lack of calcium or an abundance of phosphorus. The bones weaken, increasing the risk of broken bones. He may even break his back or neck if he falls, requiring you to have the pet euthanized.

Shaky legs and prolonged trembling are common signs of calcium deficiency. Use a calcium supplement to attempt to correct the problem. If it continues, take your pet to the vet, especially if your glider develops seizures or the trembling becomes worse.

What do sugar gliders drink?

Sugar gliders drink water, typically from a water bottle or dish. However, sugar glider babies often receive a mixture of water and Gatorade or Pedialyte for the first couple of weeks, as they prefer the sweeter taste. After a couple of weeks, you start gradually decreasing the Gatorade or Pedialyte until the glider drinks plain water.

How do you detect dehydration in a sugar glider?

A dehydrated glider may have stiff skin and dull eyes. Pinch the skin located behind the neck. In a healthy glider, the skin should return to its shape within a second. If the fold remains for more than a second, its likely dehydrated. Give it a combination of water and Gatorade or Pedialyte.

Why does my sugar glider shake?

Gliders tend to shake when they first wake up. If your glider continues to shake or you notice weak hind legs, it may have a calcium deficiency, which can lead to bone disease. Try adding more calcium to the gliders diet, such as insects that are fed calcium-rich food.

Related articles:

Resources and further reading:

What Do Sugar Gliders Eat? (Complete Food List)

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Planning out a meal for your pet sugar gliders?

You can tell that a sugar glider diet would involve sweet foods from the animals name.

Despite their love for sugary foods, did you know that they are omnivorous?

In this article, Ill show you what sugar gliders eat and how you should feed them.

This post contains affiliate links. We earn a commission if you make a purchase at no extra cost to you.

What Foods Do Sugar Gliders Eat?

There is a variety of foods available. This typically depends on the habitat theyre in. Lets explore the different habitats and the different diets.

To give you an idea, heres aYouTube Videofrom Sugar Glider Diaries about what her pet sugar gliders eat.

What Do Sugar Gliders Eat As Pets?

Sugar gliders eat exudates (fluid) from plants and insects. (1), says International Sustainable Program Researcher Dr. Ellen Dierenfeld

Captive sugar gliders diet must have nutritional requirements they get from the wild.

Some pet owners give their pets a BML sugar glider diet to achieve this.

Lets talk about their natural diet which fruits and greens can you feed your glider?

What Fruits Can Sugar Gliders Eat?

Sweet fruits have freshwater to hydrate your nocturnal pet animals. Not only that, but they also have Vitamins and minerals to keep your fur babies strong.

Here is an array of fruits or fruit juice you can give your sugar glider in moderation.

Banana

A fresh ripe banana treat is the best. You can also choose banana slices or banana chips.

You can feed them banana seeds, but refrain from giving them the banana peel.

A banana jam is also a no, as it could have too much sugar or sugar substitutes that can harm your baby.

Strawberry

One strawberry makes an excellent treat. Like bananas, strawberry chips are good. There should be no artificial nectar products or flavors added.

Remove the calyx. It could kill those nocturnal creatures if they feed on pesticides.

Apple

The fruit itself is safe, same with the apple juice. remove the apple seeds as these are toxic to gliders.

Oranges

Of the variety of orange fruits, organic oranges are the best. Sugar gliders can eat orange peel in moderation.

When feeding, always remember to remove the harmful orange seeds.

Papaya

You can give your sugar glider a mouthful piece of papaya per meal. Papaya seeds are not harmful to eat, but still, not that recommended.

To make sure youre feeding , better remove the seeds. They are not delicious, anyway.

Remove the papaya peels as well.

Sugar glider favorite treats also include other fruits such as mango, blueberries, and strawberries.

What Vegetables Can Sugar Gliders Eat?

You can give your pet gliders some greens with low calcium levels.

Take a look at this sugar glider food list:

Sweet Potatoes

Take note that I mentioned sweet potatoes and not the white ones. White potatoes are not a healthy food for sugar gliders.

A small cube of these sweet treats can fill your furry companions tummies.

Corn

Owners of sugar gliders should serve them fresh or frozen ones. Keep canned corns away from your captive sugar gliders.

It will ruin their calcium to phosphorus ratio and cause disorders in sugar gliders.

Tomatoes

All types are tomatoes make an occasional excellent treat for your sugar glider. The good thing is that all kinds of tomatoes are safe for them.

Fresh organic tomatoes are the best choice. With organic ones, theres no need to remove the tomato peels.

Carrots

The best choice of carrot treats is the fresh and frozen ones. Avoid canned food.

Remove the peels, or better yet, give your sugar glider an organic vegetable.

Squash

For non-organic squash, remove the peels. You should also take the stems and seeds off before feeding.

You can cook the vegetable or keep them raw. When you prefer to cook, do not add any seasoning.

boil or put your veggies to warm up in a microwave.

You can feed your sugar glider some cucumber, low-calcium lettuce.

Examples include Boston lettuce, broccoli, and some sprouts for other vegetable options.

What Do Sugar Gliders Eat in The Wild?

A wild gliders natural diet depends on the everyday foods around them. These social animals need protein sources such as insects.

They also eat fruits and greens for the vitamins and minerals.

Here are some of the natural treats they love to munch on.

Animal Protein Sources

• Cicadas are insects high in protein, low in fat, and feature a lot of muscles.
• Earthworms are rich in amino acids lysine and methionine.
• Moths have high antioxidant contents for a more robust immune system. Also, it has high levels of fiber for good digestion and potassium for blood pressure.
• Crickets are an excellent calcium supplement. This promotes bone strength. Did you know that crickets have 180% more iron than beef meat?
• Mealworms have high-quality proteins, vitamins, and amino acids.
• Bird eggs are high in protein but low in carbohydrates and sugar.
• Beetles have antioxidants, high iron contents, fiber, omega-6 fatty acids, zinc, and calcium.
• Spiders are rich in folic acid for healthy cell formation and zinc.

The Fresh Fruits and Greens

• Kiwi has Vitamin C, good protection against diseases, and boosts immunity.
• Acacia trees gum is a good source of fiber for good digestive health.
• Honeydew is rich in nutrients to help strengthen the bones and muscles.
• Eucalyptus tree sap is an immune system booster and a good antiseptic.
• Pollen is rich in vitamins, antioxidants, and minerals.
• Nectar contains amino acids, proteins, and ions.

5 Best Sugar Glider Dry Foods

You can feed your pet sugar glider with dry foods, too! With plenty of products in the market, which is the best sugar glider pellet food?

Heres a list of the 5 best sugar glider dry foods for sale in pet stores and online.

When and How to Feed Your Sugar Glider

Sugar gliders need roughly 15-20 percent of their body weight in food every day. (backup) This isnt much considering they only weigh 3-5 ounces.

The Food Quantity

Depending on their size and weight, a sugar glider needs around 0.45 ounces to 1 ounce of food for a complete meal.

This equates to 1/4 to 1/2 ice cubes of your sugar glider food recipes. Add a teaspoon of nutritional pellets.

Also, feed your gliders 2-3 tablespoons of fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts.

You can give your sugar glider protein-rich mealworms or the like as a treat.

ALSO READ: What is the TPG Diet for Sugar Gliders?

The Feeding Schedule

The ideal feeding schedule is twice to thrice a day.

Let me give you an example feeding schedule for your reference.

ALSO CHECK: Why Is My Sugar Glider is Getting Fat

For Feeding Twice a day

For Feeding Thrice a Day

Is Your Sugar Glider Refusing to Eat? What to Do About It?

The key is not to panic. When youre introducing new food to your sugar glider, its normal for your pets not to eat a unique treat.

Introduce the meal to your furry friend with small servings. Let them adjust to the new flavor of food until they get used to it.

Like people, they have their taste in food too. Exploring their favorites will be one of your duties as a fur parent.

Yet, if thats not the case, take them immediately to the veterinarian.

If your baby is eating less than his usual serving or not eating, it could be sick. It needs immediate attention.

What Do Sugar Gliders Drink As Pets?

You can never go wrong with fresh, filtered water. It is always the best option.

You can give your pet glider fresh fruit juice for an occasional treat. Do not add artificial flavors to your juice.

What To Avoid Feeding Sugar Gliders?

You should avoid feeding sugar gliders with dairy food. These include milk, yogurt, cheese, and chocolate.

Also, do not give them pesticide-treated fruits and veggies. Always look for organic ones.

Several sugar glider recipes are easy to prepare at home. They have the nutrients your sugar gliders need.

FAQs

How do sugar gliders find food in the wild?

They tear the bark off the trees with their teeth, then eat holes in the wood until they get the delicious sap reward. They also consume fruits and, on occasion, seek out protein sources.

Do sugar gliders eat birds in the wild?

Conclusion

Knowing what sugar gliders eat will save them from health problems caused by a poor diet.

Take care of your social creatures by feeding them a healthy balanced diet.

Always remember, a healthy sugar glider makes a happy glider.

What is your sugar gliders favorite food? Let us know below!

Resources

• 1. Dierenfeld ES. Feeding Behavior and Nutrition of the Sugar Glider (Petaurus breviceps). Veterinary Clinics of North America: Exotic Animal Practice. 2009;12:20915.
• 2. Wild A. Tasmanias not so sweet invader: the sugar glider [Internet]. CSIROscope. 2018 [cited 2022 Apr 26]. Available from: https://blog.csiro.au/sugar-gliders-invasive-tasmania/

Ben Roberts

My name is Ben Roberts, and I absolutely love animals. So, naturally, I love writing about them too! As far as my animals, I have a Pit-bull, a Beagle-lab mix, a Chihuahua, and one old cat. Each one of them provides me with a new adventure every day. And the best part is theyre all best friends. Well, except the cat when he gets a little annoyed.FIND HIM ON: FACEBOOK and TWITTER.Read his latest ARTICLESLearn more about Benhere