<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Emmsmom</i>
<br /><blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Omis n Kais g-ma</i>
<br />So, she's damn! But hasn't reached oh hell no yet huh? If you watch Gabriel Iglesias, you'll know the terminology. I believe the six levels of fat are big, heavy, husky, fluffy, damn and oh hell no! Maybe a wheel of her very own.
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Thats funny!
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LOL Yeah...on that scale she'd probably be considered husky.


oh...and just because I saw that this smiley is called 'gibbs': hehehe

Here is the link Art posted:
http://www.glidercentral.net/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/1064580/Duke_and_Duchess#Post1064580%20&20%

You have only had these gliders for a few days. I would not reduce the honey in the HPW - your other gliders do not need to be on a weight reduction diet.

Offer lots of out of cage play time and weigh her weekly for a while to see what her weight it doing on the regular diet you feed - then ask the vet if her weight continues to go up if you should make any diet changes.

Thanks Candy, the vet was concerned with her weight & suggested lots of out of cage time, foraging activities, & wheel use. His words: 'make her work for her food'. Other than that the only diet suggestions he gave were 1: use egg whites instead of the whole egg & 2) no fatty treats like yogies & mealies. Though he did suggest pheonix mealies for their low fat & high calcium content.

And I found a food scale that measures grams in incriments of 1! :D Now all of my furbats will get weekly weigh-ins. :D

Other than that, he said that my suggies look very healthy. So I'm relieved.

Oh, I almost forgot...Fritz weights in the 90's grams, Quinn's just over 100 grams, & Nia's at a whoping 140 grams.

What is the recommended weight for them?

My vet says 90-120 but other people's vets say 100-150 and everything in between.

140 is not so bad. Normal adult females range between 120 and 135 or so. Adult males around 150. So she's a little tubby. That's OK. Just give her lots of out-of-cage time and wheel time (2 wheels is a good idea like what was said above). And maybe fewer hand-fed treats as the others. It's much better for them to be tubby than skinny. She is very cute by the way :-)

Poor Nia. Everyone talking about the extra junk in her trunk like it's weighing down the car.

I have seen larger and smaller gliders. I can't really tell from the first picture how big she is though. If you have only had them a few days then I would for sure give them adjustment time before making any changes. Gliders don't do well with stress of any kind.

I'm trying to keep things as calm as possible, just not giving them yogies at the moment. (I've never served mealies, though I'm considered pheonix worms as they're lower in fat & have a 1.5:1 CA:PH ratio.)

And I think that because of the stress form moving, they're not eating as much (only 1 of 3 servings of HPW mix disapeared last night, though they ate the blackberries, okra, & carrots when I put them in the pouch before leaving for work this morning). So I'm going to start scattering around various healthy food options about the cage to make it more like foraging and hopefully grab their interest.

Note: scat looks fine just in less amounts.

I definitly understand that there are petite to big boned gliders out there, but the difficulty she has climbing vines and branches concerns me. Plus the picture that the previous owner sent me is like night & day to what she looks like now.

She looked so alert and active in that pic and now is only really active when she's in the wheel and she doesn't have that 'HI! I'M FUN' look on her face like she did in the older picture and like the boys have.

Plus, the vet confirmed my suspicion & suggested what I was going to do anyway (no fatty treats, lots of wheel & out of cage time, make her work for the food). Though the last one I'm going to wait for about a week to start so they can get settled in and get used to the new routine.

Here's what I'm planning on doing tonight as precautionary measures to help combat any possible negative affects from the stress:

1) mix unflavored pedialite into their water (ratio of 1:1)
2) provide various food 'stations' around the cage so they're easy to find and access and provide lots of viarity
3) hopefully I'll be able to put the 2nd wheel in tonight if not it should go in by the end of this week
4) I'm going to change out of cage time to dry tub time so she's kind of fourced to move around & play with the boys (she's been acting a bit like a loner lately. The boys will come out to explore during out of cage time, but she stays either in the pouch or in the wheel, I think this is because of the difficulty she has traversing the vines and branches)
5) I'm going to order some of the pheonix worms as I know Nia & Quinn LOVE mealies and Fritz as LOVED any bug he's been able to get his paws on

Here's my Vet: http://www.fstvet.com/index.html

I am quite impressed with their facility so far. Dr. Heather was great to work with during Fritz's checkup about a month ago. But Dr. Ryan was MUCH more knowledgable & his checkup was much more through. I'm going to request him from now on despite his abrasive personality (I think he's one of those people who definitly gets along better with animals than with humans, lol). Both are highly respected in the area as exotic pet vets & Dr. Heathers was recommened by someone here. My only concern is that the care sheet they gave me is definitly out of date (pine as a bedding option? and premium dog food to include as a part if a diet high in viarety?).

Is there a place where I can post a customer review for other sugar glider owners in MD to see?

How about their website? I know most Dr. offices have a place where you can leave a review. You can put a link on your profile to that review on your profile as well. Thats how I did my vet.

You can also go up to "resources", then "vets" and enter their info.

How is Nia doing is she gripping and climbing? Is she eating better?

Thank you Candy for the working link.
Art

Nia seems to be doing fine. Her energy is still lower than the boys, but she hogs the wheel like no other lol. She's definitly less curious & less apt to willingly to come out for out of cage time. She still has difficulty with branches & vines. But now that she's settled in it seems like she's willing to do more. She's drinking less & eating more (thank god!).

What get's me is that she looks and acts like she wants to go exploring with the boys & pounce on the feather cat teaser toy I have, but doesn't. It hurts to see her like that.

I've greatly cut back on any fatty treats and provide pleanty of healthy foods. I'm also increasing the foraging options in the cage for them. I'm just worried that the boys will use it all before she can get to them. :/

Acording to my vet she can loose about 2.5% of her body weight per month & be healthy. Any more (esp. close to 5%) and that's an indicator of something being wrong. Since the 'healthy' weight range is so large, I'm going to keep a close eye & see where she feels more comfortable.