In Reply to: I have an idea about sugargliders... posted by Chadwick on March 08, 2000 at 19:31:47:

1. In adequet diet.. if they are lacking suffcient calcium and or proteins.. seeing that the clium is absorbed into the blood of a lactating mother, it first goes to the joeys. If there is an insuffecient amount, the mother may eat the babies for survival, not always but sometimes..
2. If mom's milk is not producing enough, the joeys may die and mom eat them after the fact..but to the owner it only seem like mom ate them first..
3. Stress, the gliders adrenaline gland is HUGE as compared to other mammels, hence they don't handle stress well at all, and can do many things, out of the ordinary, as well as poison their own system...
4. If the joey had a birth defct, the mothers will kill them.
5. If in with a Trio of 2 females and 1 male, the second female may kill the joeys..
6. If the male is NOT the father of them, he may not accept them as his, and will kill them.
7. If a lone female, without the father there, to care for them, keep them warm etc.. agin the joeys may die, and mom will eat the corpse.
8. genetically unfit to be a parent?? chances are slim, but still possible..

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