Sugar Glider
A marsupial that glides on a membrane between wrist and ankle and covers long distances in one go. Colonial, nocturnal, and it feeds on sap and insects.
Overview
A sugar glider is a marsupial, not a rodent, and the membrane between its wrists and ankles is the thing everything else follows from. Stretched out, with the tail steering, a wild glider covers up to 50 metres in one glide. There is no cage that offers that, which is the honest tension in keeping one.
They are nocturnal, they live in colonies in the wild, and in captivity they do markedly better in pairs or small groups than alone. In the wild they feed on sap, gum, nectar, honeydew and insects, and that mix is difficult to reproduce, which is why nutritional disease is the single most common reason a pet glider ends up at a vet.
Temperament
Bonded, noisy and awake all night. A glider that has settled with its keeper will ride in a pocket for hours, and one that has not will bark and crab at you, a loud rasping noise that carries through a house at three in the morning.
They are colonial animals, so a single glider is short of most of what it needs, and self mutilation and stress behaviour in solitary gliders are well recorded. Bonding takes weeks and is done on the animal's schedule, not yours.
Care and grooming
The diet is the hard part and it is worth being blunt about it. Calcium and protein deficiencies are common in captive gliders fed casually, and they lead to metabolic bone disease, which shows up as weakness in the back legs, then tremors, fractures and paralysis.
That means a properly formulated diet with the calcium to phosphorus ratio right, live insects for protein, and a nectar or gum component, rather than fruit and a bag of pellets. Get the plan from an exotics vet before the animal arrives, not after.
Living and exercise
Tall, aviary style, and as big as the room allows, with branches at different heights so there is somewhere to launch to and from.
Night is when they use it, so a glider cage in a bedroom is a poor idea. Give a cloth pouch to sleep in during the day, keep the room warm, and expect a long commitment: ten to fifteen years is normal, which is a good deal longer than the small mammal it is often mistaken for.
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