I am getting my babies on Sunday. I am huge into essential oils (young living) and I use them with my dogs all the time. Does anyone use essential oils with their sugar gliders?

Thanks!

oil? like in fur oils?
As far as I know, dogs should NOT have baths very often as they have natural oil in them, that keeps their coat nice.
sugar glider self clean like a cat, sugar gliders groom all the time, ours have nice beautiful fur without any help from us, unless your glider is ill or has a injury, my understanding is they can take care of themselves.

Be very careful with essential oils with gliders. A poster on this site mixed a very small amount in with her cleaning solution and it nearly killed the glider. Hopefully she will see your post and can provide better details.

That would be me. This post is going to be fairly long but it is important, I was actually thinking I should make another post about it last week.

Amy's story...

I had split my colony of 6 up and also broke down my double brisbane cage back to singles. The plan was to have a trio in each single cage. This was almost a full days project, late after noon I decided to freshen up the cages but only had time to do one of them. My NORMAL cleaning routine for over 2 years was just a drop of dawn dish soap and water, but that day I had found a bottle of eucalyptus oil and thought wth lets see how we like this.

I added 2 DROPS To a bowl of water and dawn and proceeded to wipe down the cage. It smelled lovely ( for about 20 minutes anyway ) The reason I decided to use the oil is I had been reading for months about people using essential oils and I assumed it was safe. I didn't see anyone having any issues.

I ran out of time and could only do one of the cages that day thank god. Everybody got settled in their newly single cages and all was fine or so I thought.

Over the next week I thought Amy was losing a little weight, her fur looked off and her belly was starting to look brown. Nicky and Simon's fur started looking greasy but they weren't looking any thinner ( they are both large gliders Amy is small ) Their weights were 190 grams Nicky, 164 grams Simon and 75 grams Amy.

The second week I was really getting concerned about Amy's weight she was losing weight at a very rapid pace, but she was eating very well. Simon and Nicky just looked oily and felt oily. In two weeks time Amy lost 25 grams, that is a lot and that also put her in the danger weight zone.

At this point my concern for Amy was so high, that I had forgotten all about using the oil. It isn't my normal cleaning routine at all. I also had a new glider coming to me very soon from Bourbon and I wanted to be as transparent with her as I possibly could, so I contacted her n let her know what was going on with Amy. I had already made a vet appointment as well.

When things like this happen it is very important to try to find the cause and not just treat the symptoms. So Bourbon asked me a million questions to try to find the cause of Amy's symptoms. She must have asked me 20 times what I used to clean the cage with my answer was " dawn and water" " dawn and water" "dawn and water" "dawn water and OMG I USED EUC OIL !!!!!!!!!" Followed by a few F words.

GOOD she said now get the bottle of oil and read the label.... by now I'm bawling, this was all my fault. I start reading the label, " Do not swallow, avoid contact with skin and eyes, do not to hot oil to water, avoid contact with polished painted or synthetic surfaces..."

Well there was the cause, right there in black and white. Amy had a severe reaction to the oil, she rubbed herself all over Simon and Nicky transferring some of the body oil from her body trying to expel the toxins to Nicky and Simon causing their fur to be oily as well.

IMMEDIATELY I removed the trio from the cage and put them all in my temp cage. The brisbane cage was taken outside and got several thorough cleanings and pressure washing to remove all the oil in hard to reach places. All the toys that had fleece on them were tossed, all the cage set pieces were tossed too.

We followed through with the vet appointment, only now we were armed with more information to help Amy. I brought the bottle of oil along to show the vet and she agreed with the cause being the oil and the symptoms the oil caused. She also agreed bathing all 3 gliders would help remove the toxins that were being absorbed by their skin.

Now I mentioned Amy was in the danger weight zone, that is a real thing and glider owners should know what they are. For an adult glider Anything in the 50 - low 60 grams is the danger zone.

Amy was 75 grams when this started she was at 50 grams at the vets office 2 weeks after I cleaned the cage.

MOST people would have fed her glider crack to make her regain weight faster. Glider crack was made for a sick glider and is the communities go to recipe for what they feel are underweight gliders, even if that glider isn't in or even close to the danger weight.

Glider crack has a very high fat content, which makes internal organs work even harder. So in Amy's case, her organs were already working overtime to flush the toxins out of her body, we did not feel adding on a high fat recipe would benefit her in fact we thought it would do more damage to her organs. Even Peggy who created Glider Crack agreed and feels it is over used by the community.

So for Amy, I just fed Bml as usual, I added no extra treats and didn't do anything differently than I usually do for feeding. Gradual weight gain is a healthier way to gain weight.

Amy did get put on antibiotics as a precautionary measure, and the trio received regular baths until their fur was back to the individual gliders "normal" Amy received more baths than Nicky and Simon.

This happened Aug 20th 2016, 8 months ago...

It was a long road for Amy to regain the weight she lost, she is now currently at 70 grams, I don't think she will ever regain the last 5 grams. Her fur looks pretty good but still a tad off color ( she was never really a grey to begin with she has always had a brown tinge to her )

I truly believe, if we hadn't found the cause that day, she would have died in the next two days, especially if she remained in that cage.

Watching this trio through all this was simply amazing. Amy is about 3 yrs old but while she was ill she reverted to being a joey. She acted like a joey, she was the size and weight of a joey and rode on Simon and Nickys backs like a joey and they let her. They were the most awesome, tender, caring parents to Amy even though Nicky and Simon have never bred or been parents. This is kind of uncommon in the glider world usually if one glider is sick the others will try to chase the sick one off to keep colony healthy and avoid drawing the attention of predator animals.

The trio is thriving and doing fine now and have even gained a new member to their colony my lil 13 week oop Cozig joined them a couple weeks ago. But, we still aren't sure how extensive the organ damage was or still is, or how that will affect her life expectancy.

So that's Amy's story, and yes I still feel loads of guilt for all this. However, her story has been told publicly here and on facebook groups and because of that we have helped other gliders that have had reactions to oils, so for that we are very proud and grateful.


Amy when she was sick


The trio

I thought I'd break this post up in two parts. So here is part 2.

1. There is no reason to use oils for gliders. It is more for the human's benefit than it is the gliders.

Yes I know their are different oils and different quality of oils. Still there is no reason to use oils for gliders.

Yes, some essential oils are safer choices, Still there is no reason to use oils for gliders.

Yes gliders love the smell of eucalyptus, so get some euc branches from a reputable vendor ( Matts euc products ) instead of oils they will enjoy the plant much more than just the smell.

2 Oil does NOT mix with water, it pools, puddles up. There for leaving oil in higher concentration in some spots and not others, on what ever you are putting it on if you combined it with water.

3 oils are concentrated, sometimes more than 25 times the natural oil content that is found in the original plant it came from. 25 TIMES STRONGER THINK about that.

So, do I think oils are beneficial or necessary for gliders or cleaning their cages....... absolutely not.

If you are using oils to clean the cages to reduce the glider smell, address why there is a glider smell in the first place instead of trying to cover it up.

MAKE NOTE of any changes you make to your cleaning routine! If I had written it down that I changed my long time routine I would have known what the problem was much sooner and that would have helped Amy much sooner, in my mind I hadn't changed anything when I was asked several times.

So If you love your essential oils that's awesome, but use them for the humans. A gliders body is considerably smaller than a humans so what might be perfectly safe to use on a human might not be the safest thing for an animal that weighs less than 200 grams.

Thanks for sharing. I was primarily thinking about diffusing and maybe lavender on the fleece However I will talk to the vet before I do anything. I really apprciate your time.

The issue with diffusers to close to cages would be respiratory issues, and residue on the cages.

The issue with oil warmers is, gliders get out of their cages and have landed in oil warmers before. It doesn't seem likely but I do know of a couple incidents of burned feet, and gliders covered in peppermint oil.

I wouldn't put any oil on the fleece.

To Leela, did you ever find out how the oil might effect them if you're using it in yourself, or if they caught a whiff from a diffuser of lavender?

I just dived into YL oils for myself and my son...

Thank you for sharing your story btw.

Babygirls mama,
Misty

I would think the problem is that most of oils sold are not 100% pure essential oil but have solvant in them (basically almost every oil sold to put on the skin is diluted with something else because pure essential oil would be too agressive for the skin).

Same goes with doses, I do use eucalyptus and tea tree essential oil in the room, but it's really small doses (there might be 2 drop in the whole room) and I would not use it on the cage

I wasn't thinking of putting anything in her room. I do diffuse oils in the living room though. I bought the eucalyptus branches for her cage. She liked climbing and jumping around it #128513;
I hold her every night, and she sleeps like most bra babies do, on me (early evenings), and runs around as it gets later. So I'm concerned about which oils are actually safe for me to use, esp if she's climbing around on me later.

quote:

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Originally posted by Leela

That would be me. This post is going to be fairly long but it is important, I was actually thinking I should make another post about it last week.

Amy's story...

I had split my colony of 6 up and also broke down my double brisbane cage back to singles. The plan was to have a trio in each single cage. This was almost a full days project, late after noon I decided to freshen up the cages but only had time to do one of them. My NORMAL cleaning routine for over 2 years was just a drop of dawn dish soap and water, but that day I had found a bottle of eucalyptus oil and thought wth lets see how we like this.

I added 2 DROPS To a bowl of water and dawn and proceeded to wipe down the cage. It smelled lovely ( for about 20 minutes anyway ) The reason I decided to use the oil is I had been reading for months about people using essential oils and I assumed it was safe. I didn't see anyone having any issues.

I ran out of time and could only do one of the cages that day thank god. Everybody got settled in their newly single cages and all was fine or so I thought.

Over the next week I thought Amy was losing a little weight, her fur looked off and her belly was starting to look brown. Nicky and Simon's fur started looking greasy but they weren't looking any thinner ( they are both large gliders Amy is small ) Their weights were 190 grams Nicky, 164 grams Simon and 75 grams Amy.

The second week I was really getting concerned about Amy's weight she was losing weight at a very rapid pace, but she was eating very well. Simon and Nicky just looked oily and felt oily. In two weeks time Amy lost 25 grams, that is a lot and that also put her in the danger weight zone.

At this point my concern for Amy was so high, that I had forgotten all about using the oil. It isn't my normal cleaning routine at all. I also had a new glider coming to me very soon from Bourbon and I wanted to be as transparent with her as I possibly could, so I contacted her n let her know what was going on with Amy. I had already made a vet appointment as well.

When things like this happen it is very important to try to find the cause and not just treat the symptoms. So Bourbon asked me a million questions to try to find the cause of Amy's symptoms. She must have asked me 20 times what I used to clean the cage with my answer was " dawn and water" " dawn and water" "dawn and water" "dawn water and OMG I USED EUC OIL !!!!!!!!!" Followed by a few F words.

GOOD she said now get the bottle of oil and read the label.... by now I'm bawling, this was all my fault. I start reading the label, " Do not swallow, avoid contact with skin and eyes, do not to hot oil to water, avoid contact with polished painted or synthetic surfaces..."

Well there was the cause, right there in black and white. Amy had a severe reaction to the oil, she rubbed herself all over Simon and Nicky transferring some of the body oil from her body trying to expel the toxins to Nicky and Simon causing their fur to be oily as well.

IMMEDIATELY I removed the trio from the cage and put them all in my temp cage. The brisbane cage was taken outside and got several thorough cleanings and pressure washing to remove all the oil in hard to reach places. All the toys that had fleece on them were tossed, all the cage set pieces were tossed too.

We followed through with the vet appointment, only now we were armed with more information to help Amy. I brought the bottle of oil along to show the vet and she agreed with the cause being the oil and the symptoms the oil caused. She also agreed bathing all 3 gliders would help remove the toxins that were being absorbed by their skin.

Now I mentioned Amy was in the danger weight zone, that is a real thing and glider owners should know what they are. For an adult glider Anything in the 50 - low 60 grams is the danger zone.

Amy was 75 grams when this started she was at 50 grams at the vets office 2 weeks after I cleaned the cage.

MOST people would have fed her glider crack to make her regain weight faster. Glider crack was made for a sick glider and is the communities go to recipe for what they feel are underweight gliders, even if that glider isn't in or even close to the danger weight.

Glider crack has a very high fat content, which makes internal organs work even harder. So in Amy's case, her organs were already working overtime to flush the toxins out of her body, we did not feel adding on a high fat recipe would benefit her in fact we thought it would do more damage to her organs. Even Peggy who created Glider Crack agreed and feels it is over used by the community.

So for Amy, I just fed Bml as usual, I added no extra treats and didn't do anything differently than I usually do for feeding. Gradual weight gain is a healthier way to gain weight.

Amy did get put on antibiotics as a precautionary measure, and the trio received regular baths until their fur was back to the individual gliders "normal" Amy received more baths than Nicky and Simon.

This happened Aug 20th 2016, 8 months ago...

It was a long road for Amy to regain the weight she lost, she is now currently at 70 grams, I don't think she will ever regain the last 5 grams. Her fur looks pretty good but still a tad off color ( she was never really a grey to begin with she has always had a brown tinge to her )

I truly believe, if we hadn't found the cause that day, she would have died in the next two days, especially if she remained in that cage.

Watching this trio through all this was simply amazing. Amy is about 3 yrs old but while she was ill she reverted to being a joey. She acted like a joey, she was the size and weight of a joey and rode on Simon and Nickys backs like a joey and they let her. They were the most awesome, tender, caring parents to Amy even though Nicky and Simon have never bred or been parents. This is kind of uncommon in the glider world usually if one glider is sick the others will try to chase the sick one off to keep colony healthy and avoid drawing the attention of predator animals.

The trio is thriving and doing fine now and have even gained a new member to their colony my lil 13 week oop Cozig joined them a couple weeks ago. But, we still aren't sure how extensive the organ damage was or still is, or how that will affect her life expectancy.

So that's Amy's story, and yes I still feel loads of guilt for all this. However, her story has been told publicly here and on facebook groups and because of that we have helped other gliders that have had reactions to oils, so for that we are very proud and grateful.


Amy when she was sick


The trio

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Thanks for sharing the story with us. I'm glad I did some research and looking on here to double check on using oils. I found a eucalyptus oil bottle and was going to use it but looked on here first. in fine print on the bottle it says keep out of children and pets reach.

Only the fresh stuff!