DIET

ARTICLES

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QUICK FACTS ON DIET:

*THE MOST IMPORTANT part of Glider care is the diet they are fed.

*The leading Glider problem Vets see in their offices are

Gliders in poor health due to a bad diet.

*Before bringing your glider home, do your homework!

*Ask the person you got your glider from what it has been fed.

*Gliders MUST be on a "Proven Sugar Glider Diet

comprised of many things such as protein, fruits, veggies, calcium, vitamins and minerals and an acceptable amount of phosphorus.

*To be a proven diet, it must have been fed to gliders and "proven" over the years to be healthy for your "captive" sugar glider.

*There are many, diets out there that say they are "Sugar Glider diets" but are not nutritionally sound.

*BEWARE of any diet that you can purchase in a pet store, and any diet that says it is complete.

*FRESH fruit and veggies are a daily requirement

*ALL glider diets require fresh fruit and veggies and a protein source like crickets and mealworms that are raised as feeder food, or boiled chicken DAILY.

*NEVER feed a bug you find in or around your house

*The calcium/ phosphorous ratio in the diet is very important.

*BML is the preferred, proven diet of all those involved in Suggie Savers.

BML DIET PAGE

CLICK THE PICTURE ABOVE TO LEARN HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN MEALWORM FARM.

Most of the food you will see sold or labeled for Sugar Gliders is unacceptable by itself, and even when fed with fruits and veggies can be dangerous at the very least, and often times deadly.

Lets look at how a Sugar Glider eats its food. Although Gliders have large, sharp teeth, they do not swallow their food. Sugar Gliders are masticators, which means they suck the nutrients from their food and spit out what is left. If you watch a glider eat you will notice they actually roll the food with their tongues around their mouths, smashing it against their cheeks, until what is left is a dry half moon shaped ball, which they spit out. Now look at the dry foods they try to sell as glider foods and picture them eating these foods, and the scratches and cuts they can cause inside the gliders mouth. This can lead to painful infections and then to costly vet bills.

THE FACTS

Gliders in the U.S. are not in their native environment, and we (in the U.S.) cannot give the nutrients they receive in the wild. An amazing, glider lover named Bourbon, and a Zoologist Nutritionalist did much research to get a diet as close as possible to what is fed to the captive gliders in zoos in Australia. Using products found here in the U.S. they were able to match the nutritional needs of captive raised Sugar Gliders. This diet is called the BML (Bourbon's Modified Leadbeaters) Diet. The original Leadbeaters diet contains High Protein Baby food that is available ONLY in some countries including Australia, but is no longer available here in the U.S., Bourbon's gliders have been on BML for 10 plus years (Baybe is 14 years old now) and all of her gliders, as well as countless others have eaten this diet for many years and many, many glider owners can thank her for the health and longevity of their gliders. Many glider owners, rescuers and vets, swear by BML, and wont do any surgeries until the unhealthy rescues have been on BML and have brought their tiny bodies back to a healthy weight. BML must be fed exactly as it is written, changing it in any way will change the very delicate balance the gliders need to thrive. This diet is one of the very few diets that have been broken down nutritionally to this extent. There are other diets out there for gliders, but all of us involved in this site agree on BML as the only diet for our Sugar Gliders.

Phosphorous is a very important part of your gliders diet. For every gram of phosphorus ingested in a gliders diet, the body must match that with another gram of calcium. Phosphorus can’t be absorbed through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream without calcium. If the required calcium is not available from the diet, the body will obtain it from wherever it can---such as from the storage deposits in the bones. This decreases the bones integrity in a Glider and it can cause a very serious disease common in gliders with bad diets called Hind Leg Paralysis or HLP for short.
This is where the whole idea of calcium-phosphorus ratios comes in. The purpose of calculating such a ratio is to make sure that for every gram of phosphorus you're feeding, you're feeding AT LEAST an equal amount of calcium (a 1:1 ratio or better), so that calcium isn't being continually mobilized from bones. The ideal levels are between 1.2 to 2 parts calcium to 1 part phosphorus. BML is 2:1.

Too much calcium is just as bad as not enough, so when adding calcium to your gliders diet, remember that too much can harden their livers and is hard on their kidneys. This is the reason a proven diet is so important for your glider, and the reason so much research was needed to find the right combinations of ingredients.

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