Yoghurt?????????

[Alfalfa]

I would just like to clarify that Australian vets and Wildlife rehabilatators do not recomend using yoghurt for marsupilas. The vets here believe it upsets the natural bacteria in the gliders gut that breaks down the food. Yes yoghurt has great benifits for the human stomach but gliders are not humans. Adding yoghurt to thier diet is an American invention not an Australian one. Our vets have done far more research and the zoo's have delt with Sugar Gliders since the early 1960's. You will notice The Healesville Sanctuary diet and The Taronga Zoo diet does not use yoghurt.

[Marie]

I'm one of those who adds yogurt occasionally.  Personally if it's bad for them I don't have a problem not feeding it (it just means all the more for me because it's so damn nice!), but I have also seen it benefit a hand reared joey!  My little Lily developed very bad diarrohea while I was hand rearing her, giving her a tiny bit of live yogurt was my first initial thought which I did also check with a friend and I found it did help. 

I would like to see more evidence of this as my suggies do love their yogurt (does this go for yogurt drops too? - I hope not they'd gang up on me and torture me if they didn't get their yoggie drops!), and while I know suggies are not humans - do we have different bacteria in the gut?  Is it because suggies have an enlarged caecum? 

Wow, whilst researching moggy nosh ingredients, I found this:

"Yoghurt is sometimes used for therapy of chronic diarrhoea in the mistaken belief that the bacteria contained in yoghurt (Lactobacillus acidophilius or Lactobacillus bulgaricus) will colonise the bowel and displace unfavourable bacteria.

Yoghurt has bacteriocidal properties in vitro (test tube) but not in vivo (in the body). Orally administered bacteria in yoghurt does not displace resident or pathogenic bacterial populations in normal or diseased intestines of any animal. The bacteria in yoghurt are generally acid labile (destroyed by the stomach acid), limiting the numbers surviving passage through the stomach. (Research originally published in the Journal of Small Animal Practice Vol. 35)."

Taken from http://www.burns-pet-nutrition.co.uk/Articles/understanding_pet_food_labels.htm

[jungleflockmom]

I think that's why gliders eat each others' fecal pellets.
When I want to recolonize a gut, I use a probiotic w/lots of different strains of bacteria rather than just lactobacillus. I would need a little more evidence than that article to believe that recolonization is impossible. I've just seen so much digestive improvement following the feeding of live bacteria.

[SugarBlossoms]

I have always fed my suggies Plain yogurt or the Breyer's mixed fruit and occasionally Yoplait'.  My vet (and other vets) agree it's good for them and they eat it all every single night.  I am diabetic and my system gets thrown amuck over anything and yogurt has been a literal lifesaver for me also. 

Moderation is the key I believe for the suggies.    Out of 11 suggies, not one of ours has ever had a bacterial infection and we also always add a couple drops of Apple cider Vinegar to their spring water.

[jungleflockmom]

I think that the prebiotic effect of the acacia gum is especially good to support the natural bacteria that colonizes the glider caecum.