I've lost one of my boys :(

[depurple1]

Sadly last night one of my two glider boys died.  He collapsed during the evening and died just as he reached the emergency vet.  He appeared fine the day before. 

He had a postmortem done, and the vet said he had a sudden onset kidney infection, which together with him not feeling like eating the night before was enough to kill him.  He had had a lot of health problems in the past which I think also contributed.

So, now I have his brother on his own for the first time in 5 years and I'm not sure what to do.  He seems fine health-wise but has antibiotics as a precaution. 

I think I'm going to have to get him a friend, and first have him neutered (neither was neutered as I had just two boys, and the sickly one stopped breathing if he had anaesthetic so I didn't want him having any procedures which weren't absolutely necessary, and I didn't think it was a good idea to neuter just one of them).

Has anyone else been in that situation?  Is it best to get another?  He seems a little lost by himself, and he was always the shy one, it was his brother who loved to be with people.


If so, is a male (neutered) or female best?  I'm assuming an older glider will be better?  And how should I introduce them?

Help!

[helen88uk]

So sorry to hear about your loss! Must be so difficult when ya so unprepared, obviously not something that you could ever see coming

I've only just got a pair of gliders so i've had no first hand experience with introductions. There are a lot of threads on here that i've read that have given me good advice on how to do it if I ever was to add to mine so here goes ...

Firstly, I dont think age matters too much when finding a new gliders. As long as they are roughly the same size, (the smallest one being at least 2/3rds the size of the other) then age isn't an issue. Unless you are planning to introduce a young female to your male (as you said he is stil intact) as he could possibly try to breed with her before she is mature enough (all going well with introductions of course ).

How old is your boy? I think if you did want to introduce another male you would definately have to have yours neutered first. But i've heard that after a certain age, the testosterone levels are already kind of in place in a male, and even after neutering they could still show aggressive (any un neutered behaviour perhaps) for a while. So if you were set on having another male then you should probably consider having 2 cages for a while, letting them live in the same room, see eachother through cages, possibly start pouch swapping and just go slowly to make sure the introduction went as smooth as possible.
This is the same with a female but should definately take a lot less time as your boy shouldn't feel any kind of threat or dominence test as he would with being introduced to a male.

In my opionion, you definately could do with finding a friend for your boy as no glider should be kept alone. It must be hard for him atm losing his cagemate so I wouldn't worry about rushing. Poor little guy might need some time alone to come to terms with whats happened and maybe an introduction straight away would stress him out.

I would probably go for a female though but obvioulsy one that is at least a year old and I would definately consider getting your guy neutered unless you could handle them breeding.  Hope this helps. I'm sure you will get alot more advice later on today when more people are online. A few people have experienced losses recently so it may be good to talk to them and see what they're considering.
Once again, sorry for your loss. Must be hard

And welcome to the forum, I noticed this is your first post. Sorry it was such a sad one ... x

[depurple1]

Thanks for your reply and welcome. 

I have spoken to the vet and am going to go with neutering - the vet says give him a few days to settle first and then book him in.  I definitely don't want to breed so this seems like a good idea.

Interesting about the testosterone thing - I would put any new glider in a separate cage and introduce them very slowly anyway, so hopefully they would accept each other. 

Any information and ideas gratefully received as I just want the little guy that's left to be as happy as possible.

[Marie]

Testosterone levels do drop in males when neutered.  Hormones are constantly being filtered out and re-produced they are not a constant.  The difference in hormone levels can be seen by the scent glands, if they're broad and oily then the levels are great if they're small and a bit pitiful the levels are low.  When two entire males are kept together usually you will find that one male has a big scent gland and one has a smaller scent gland, the one with the bit scent gland is the dominant one.   

[depurple1]

Thanks for the information, Marie.  I think that the glider who is left was the more submissive one.  He seems to be coping OK at the moment, although he hasn't been in the nest box to sleep since his brother died.  He's still eating and drinking though which is good.

[hday]

poor guy thats tough

I didnt know about the scent gland marie... I presumed my baby or rather adult! boys
had different size glands as some were neutuered earlier than others.
does that mean in my colony there is a hierachy of dominance...

and does that mean
when someone buys the twins
that both they and the guys left with me will change the size of their glands?