TrulyCapricious
All vertebrates need a 2:1 calcium/phosphorous ratio.
wink Plus vitamin D to be able to absorb the calcium properly!
heart How (and why) do you stay under 50% protein with animals that are mostly insectivorous? Insects are
loaded with protein. (If you discount their water values, that's pretty much all they are.) Or do you mean under the 50% protein mark relative to kibble (where there is a real risk of kidney damage from excessive protein paired with insufficient water)?
And seriously?
eek Day old chicks are huge. They're around 1/3-1/4 the weight of an adult glider. That's pretty impressive (and it sounds super messy lol.) I'm also surprised that anyone is feeding birds because they have such a high fat content. Have you heard any thoughts on feeder lizards? I've been playing around with the idea of keeping a clean colony of green anoles for a while now. I know they'd be great for my fox but would they work for gliders, too?
Do you usually go more heavily with fruits or veggies in a glider's diet? And yeah, onions are bad bad bad for just about everything and I've talked with a breeder friend about the grape/raisin study so I don't put much stock in it. At the levels they were feeding you could kill an animal with a lot of different things that are perfectly safe if fed in more reasonable amounts (like kale). But what's the scoop on broccoli and lima bans? That's really interesting!
surprised Is it just the gas thing mentioned in the link (super nifty, btw, thanks!) or is there more to it than that?
And yeah. All foxes are omnivores and while fennecs are the most carnivorous out of all of them (with a strong leaning towards being insectivorous because of their natural locale) when I was poking around the internet reading a bit about gliders it sounded like it'd be a pretty simple type of animal to add to our family since I'm already messing with a lot of the recommended foodstuffs for my fox. ^^
Also! I get what you mean about the baby fluffies as feeders. =( It took me forever to get used to feeding button quail. It's so sad.
sad Mice are a lot easier, though. If you buy pinks in bulk from rodent pro you can literally just grab a handful out of a bag, thaw 'em and feed 'em. You don't really even have to think about it. And the way they die is so much more humane than, say, the way a cow or a pig dies at a slaughterhouse.
sweatdrop No no no AT LEAST 50% of their diet SHOULD be protein. Not trying to stay UNDER that. I usually do much more, I mean, hey, these guys are pretty intense little hunters... but there are a LOT of people that have a hard time feeding ENOUGH protein and want to just stick with fruits and veggies. So I try to remind them that at least HALF of what they eat should be bugs and birds and such. (more bugs than birds, but yeah). Kibbles can be used... just be careful with it. Avoid stuff with corn, and the more "whole prey" the better.
Gliders are ridiculous. They look all tiny and cute, but they will take on parrots twice their size. And ADULT rats. (but that is dangerous, obviously) But yes, it IS messy. My gliders have caught (wild) mice before (in our old apartment. It was good to get out of there.) It was gruesome. They left me a little mouse pelt. *shudder*
Personally, I probably wouldn't feed chicks. The fluffy factor is one reason... my gliders' tendency toward chubbiness is another.
wink If I had some underweight rescues I might consider it.
I DO know some people who feed lizards. (You can watch them on YouTube and I admit, they are fun to watch hunt) Mostly anoles. Personally, I let my gliders chase plastic lizards and they love them. But real ones? No. Most anoles can carry pin worms and other parasites that don't hurt THEM... but really hurt sugar gliders. Although, raising your own may solve that issue. That could be something to add variety, I don't know much about that.
I'll be honest, I still feed grapes. In moderation. I don't think dogs should eat them, but gliders are not dogs. And I don't think anything should be fed TOO much, variety is key. I do some veg, but mostly it is fruit and protein for my gliders. The only vegetables that MY gliders really like are sugar snap peas, peppers, and squashes... SOMETIMES eucalyptus or salad greens, but it depends. ********* loved carrot shreds. The girls refuse to eat them, ever. Actually, it is mostly Nani that loves peppers. But they love fruits, ESPECIALLY persimmons, papaya, and other more "tropical" stuff. They don't like apples much or bananas at all. (other people I know have gliders whose FAVORITE fruit is banana, so you can never know.)
It is my OPINION the beans and broccoli is mostly because of gas and that gliders tend to hurt quite a bit when they have gas issues. BUT lima beans also have an enzyme in them that converts as cyanide. In bigger animals, like us, that is not a big deal because our liver also detoxes it. But the thing is, they are tiny and the amount of the poison in their liver can be dangerous. At least that is what some AVMA studies show. So I don't risk that one at all. Here is some
info about the food No-Nos.
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