Why use a soft diet?????

[Alfalfa]

Sugar Gliders teeth give us a clue to what type of diet they should be getting. They have strong incisor teeth that are large and used to tear open bark to reach the sap in the trees. The molar teeth are rounded for grinding. They use these teeth to grind insects and native fruits and pollens.

My question is why do Glider owners make smoothies and mash up all their foods and steer away from hard foods???

[jungleflockmom]

I make a nectar mix then feed veggies, fruit, cat biscuits.
Fresh eucalyptus weekly w/branches w/blossoms more often when in season. Also freeze dried waxworms.

What hard foods do you feed?

[Alfalfa]

I feed a small amount of high quality puppy chow and also add fresh eucalyptus and arcacia branches. Their are often bite marks along the branches so I know they chew it. They also do something that is seen in the wild and that is shredding the bark it looks like curling ribbon running along the branches. They don't carry it back to the nest like they do in the wild.

[Marie]

I mush my fruit up so that they cannot pick and choose their favorites and so that any vitamin supplements are evenly distributed throughout. I suppose it's like a fruity nectar mix, fruit is soft anyway so I'm not against mushing it up.  Mine get hard food in the form of cat biscuits, they're placed on top of the fruit mush so they're still nice and crunchy when the suggies get to them branches as said earlier are good too.

The soft diets that do concern me are the ones that contain no crunch at all like the leadbeater diets and they are high in sugar so will coat the teeth, and then add the fruit sugars and acids on top of that, their little mouths must feel just awful!

You know I read on the large US forum once that we shouldn't be feeding hard bugs like beetles because the exoskeleton might scratch the roof of the mouth and cause infection!!!  How BAD is that

[jungleflockmom]

My question is why do Glider owners make smoothies and mash up all their foods and steer away from hard foods???

Because they have been told that glider gums are very soft and easiely punctured and that they lap, chew, suck, then spit out the fiber part they don't want to swallow. I think people get confused about "nectar eating" animals and don't realize that they eat blossoms, etc. I guess there is a disconnect between those sharp little teeth when they bite their owners and how those teeth are used for eating.

Mine love to pull the bark loose in ribbons.