Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all, I am new here, and some what new to sugar gliders. I purchased a breeding trio with three babies about 2 months ago.
The store did not know how old the babies were. Ive been focusing on keeping their diet healthy and vaired, and i have noticed that their odor has become less offensive. One of the mothers has become really friendly and quite bold, she will come out of the cage and wander around, and let me pet her. The other female is very skittish, she will grab food from my hand and run away. The male rarely comes out of the nest box, but i heard that they are very good fathers, so im assuming he is watching the babies while the mothers feed. Ive seen the babies in the box, both in the pouch, and riding on the backs of the mother and father, but ive never seen the babies outside of the box. I guess my question is, how do I know when the babies are ready to be handled? When are they ready to be taken away from the parents? Being that i dont know how old they are its a tough question to answer, but will i see them come out by themselves? Their eyes are wide open, and they are about 3-4'' long w/o the tail. Id like to be able to tame them, but i dont want to cause any harm to them. Any help would be great! Thanks,
Jen

Jen,
You can handle the babies now. The sooner the better if you want friendly babies. Keep them warm while away from the mother. The tricky part may be getting the babies. If there is always someone gaurding them then that can pose as a difficulty. You can try to lure both parents out of their pouch or whatever you are using for thier house with a treat and then get the babies.. Or if they are on thier moms back just take them off. Never pull them off of her nipple though. This can hurt thier mouths and the moms nipples. You may even get nipped by the parents and/or the babies. But the nips are nothing. More a scare than anything. Handle the babies for an hour and then return them. Do this a few times a day if you can. You will be able to take them away when they are weaned. Yuo will know they are weaned when they are no longer nursing AT ALL from thier mother. When they are fully eating the food you are providing. Never try to hurry this or take them too soon. They need to weaan at thier own pace. Once they are fully weaned you can remove them perminantly, or you can wait a little longer so they can have thier family. Just don't wait any longer than 2 months to be safe. It would be a rare thing to have them be at breeding age any time soon, but it is always best to be on the safe side, so leave them no longer than 2 months once weaned. If you want to sell them once weaned, go ahead. Or if you want to keep them together (the babies) in a separate cage, jsut make sure you are not keeping a male and female together. Females can stay with females and males with males. Males wont fight so long as there is nothing to compete with (no females in the cage). Hope this helps. Good luck.

Thankyou ZooLady. I just took the babies out and handled them for a while. I was a little worried that they would be too old and unfriendly. But they seemed a little unstable, but very friendly. It took me a while to get them out because the male was inside the nest box with the babies and he was really mad! I forced him out of the box, and pulled the box out of the cage. It was awesome to hold the babies! All I could keep saying was, "you guys are soooooo cute!!!" Thanks again.
Jen

>>No problem Jen. Always happy to hear of good happy glider owners. I hope these guys grow up to love people nad make you or whoever thier owner ends up being happy. Enjoy them! They are the cutest critters alive. =)