In Reply to: Introducing two gliders posted by Liz on June 23, 2000 at 08:29:26:

Liz -

Since no one else has answered your question, I'll take a stab at it. This is another long one - sorry, but to get my point across, I have to tell you the story because I've never heard of this happening to anyone else.

First, let me say that you don't want to put a female that young with a mature male. His mind is on mating, and she hasn't even thought of that yet. You don't want her to have babies while she's still a baby herself.

Second, I have had experience with a male gnawing on a females head. Read on:

I got a call from a woman a couple years back that had a pair of gliders and she was getting ready to put the female to sleep. Besides having severe HLP, she said the male had opened up her skull and was eating her brain. I was flabbergasted - I told her NOT to do anything until I could see her. I met her in her vets office and they were in the exam room with a syringe of blue juice on the table. I took a look at the female, who was dragging her back legs and had a horrible wound on her head, but no, her skull was not opened. The male couldn't walk very well with his rear legs, but not near as bad as the female. Both animals were VERY tame. I snatched them up and brought them home and put them in separate cages. After the female's head healed up and they were back to walking correctly, I tried reintroducing them. They accepted each other right away. No problems until a couple weeks later, I heard screaming coming from the nest box. When I looked in, the male had wounded her head again, in fact he still had a hold of it and was trying to mount her and she wasn't letting him. I separated them and eventually put them both with new mates.

I think this is a holding technique that males use in breeding for uncooperative females. That same male hasn't done that with the new female, so I'm assuming she's been cooperative with him. But this female is a bit more aggressive than the other one, and quickly puts him in his place when he gets out of hand. Your little one has no idea what the male is doing, and is fighting him - if you wait until she's sexually mature, this might not happen. Or you can have him neutered and he might not be so aggressive with her. But either way, don't put them together now because she's ENTIRELY too young (personally, I think she's too young to be away from mom at 7 weeks oop, but you say you've had her for a couple weeks now?) - he'll continue to beat her up, and as soon as she's physically able, he will get her pregnant, and you don't want it to happen at an early age. It depletes their calcium levels and is very taxing on a young gliders system.

I personally prefer not to put a female into a situation where she might be bred until she's a year old. They can reproduce before that, but I don't think they're ready for it. JMHO, of course. But your male will hurt or even kill your female baby if you try to introduce them now. My advice would be to keep them separated until she's ready to have a mate.

KK

: Hi Y'all, Have never posted before but need help now. I have an 9 mos. old male and recently bought a little girl (now about 7 weeks oop). I have been slowly introducing them for the past couple of weeks and so far so good (almost). Here is my problem. Each time I place them together my male goes up to her and grabs her ears and proceeds to (what looks like) knaw on her head. She doesn't mind this at all as a matter of fact if he does bite her and hurts in any way she crabs at him and he runs off. She will go searching him out until he comes back to her and he is right back at it. They will go into his pouch together and he is still at it. We have never allowed them to stay together overnight or without supervision because I need to know exactly what it is he is doing. We also have two pouches in that cage but they always go into just one together. Can anyone offer some advice? Thanks

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