In Reply to: Visited a sugar glider breeder. Upset. Long post posted by Tim on April 05, 1999 at 20:31:18:

Tim,

What you witnessed was a business and only that. They are in the business to make money, the animals become a thing, not a life. Not all breeders are this way, but I am sure most of the big wholesalers are. I too have heard of another breeder in Texas, that has a thousand pairs and they too are wild caught, housed in 12x12 cages that just reek. I am not sure what the rules are for the USDA, I am checking into liscensing myself, but the Humane society would go check them out and if they found anything wrong, they would remove the animals from the breeder.

If I am not mistaken, you live in the Dallas area. There is a Breeder South of you who is extremely knowledgeable. Pat Todd, she has 34 breeding pairs, living in a glider house, all in large seperate cages. She loves her animals and takes good care of them. She even has an old pair who no longer produce joeys, that she has kept to live out their life, happy. I have heard that others release their gliders into the wild, they are lucky to survive. Her hubby, even makes a trip into the woods for vines, for each of the cages. I do know she feeds them right and keeps them clean. I have spoken to her often. She is located south of Dallas, her is her URL to her website and you can call her or email her.
http://www.angelfire.com/biz/toddsglidersandcages/. They make some really awsome cages too.

I think that Elwin Baldwin, is in the Dallas area also. I believe he is a smaller scale breeder, who has just started a rescue site, you could try him too.

Good luck and keep looking.

JO

: I am writing this not to hurt or slam this particular breeder but just to inform and also find out answers to my questions. I have heard through back posts that you should not get gliders from pet stores since they were usually kept in inadequate conditions and not given much care. I took a trip this Easter to visit a freind in San Antonio and decided to stop by a breeder in that area, since there are none that I know of around my area. The name of her buisness is Helens Little Critters. I am sorry if this person is a freind of anyone here!!
: She raises many exotics including monkeys. There were several monkeys kept outside in large cages which pleased me to see when I first stepped in her yard. We then went to the seperate building where she kept the other pets. as soon as she opened the door I was almost knocked over by the smell. I know there is a smell around animals but this was brutal. I was rather disheartened to see cages stacked about four or five high and crammed into this small building. around 100 or so cages here. she had 40 pair of sugar gliders. The cages were TINY. The 4 or 5 stacked on top of each other only made it to eye level on me and I am 6 feet. They were about the same dimension in width and depth. They were regular galvanized steel, and were rather dirty, in my opinion!!
: This didn't eek me out as much as what happened next. I was able to handle a SG and he was a little frightened and shaking. He explored me a bit and then decided to jump off my arm and onto a cage. Helen grabbed him and basically pulled him away to get him off the cage. He was clinging on it and she just yanked harder until he came off. I was thinking "this woman is going to break the legs off of this poor glider". Also a lot of the breeders were wild caught. I was atleast happey to see what a glider with babies looks like as there was a pregnant glider with two lumps in her pouch.
: I know I will get slammed for this but I was reluctant to really say anything to since I am new with all of this, and since I don't like doing that. I was just wondering, I know there are a lot of breeders that read these posts. What are your reactions to this. What size are your cages, how many do you keep altogether, and did I get the wrong impression. I have never been to a pet shop that had Sugar Gliders to judge this on, but what I saw can't be much worse.
: Again, I am sorry if anyone is personal freinds with this person, but if they were I am sure they would have siad something already. I am trying be informative and also ask for information from this post. I am not diong this to be mean to this person!!!! I was wondering if any other breeders could let me know what they think on this. I am going to want a pair around August so I am still looking and really don't mind driving a bit to get them. Sorry this message is soo long but I was really upset to see the animals kept in this condition by a "breeder". Feel free to also send me e-mail tkashet@aol.com

Follow Ups:

• Re: Elwin's URL Jo 07:33:40 4/06/99 (0)