# Sugar Glider Pros and Cons?



## zsezse4 (May 24, 2013)

Can someone please give me a basic list of Pros and cons of owning a sugar glider?


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## Crittery (May 2, 2011)

I have some information on my site at: Sugar Glider Overview - Crittery Exotics - there is a very useful UK forum here Sugar Glider Forum - Index with a good community, a good few members on there helped review the section on my site to make sure it was accurate.

I have a pair of rescues in currently, and as I also have flying squirrels (a much rarer, but similar animal in size/requirements though not dietary as they are rodents rather than marsupials) the points I'd consider personally:

CONS

- very messy, they suck nutrients out of food rather than swallow so a lot of mess is left. This then can get spat out the cage, as well as some other wastes so you need to protect the wall behind or be prepared to paint!
- They do have rather a strong musk. There are some ways of controlling it that I haven't personally explored yet, but I do think you need to be prepared for a certain level regardless.
- They are noisy. They have a loud bark which they can do at anti-social times as well as what is known as 'crabbing' I've recorded examples of this on my behaviour page if it helps. It isn't as bad as I anticipated personally, but easily loud enough to wake you up if you are fairly close to them!
- The diet is complicated and time-consuming.
- They don't seem to be awake at sociable hours...!
- They are expensive, and you MUST have more than one. So you need to have monies available if you sadly lose one to get the remaining one paired up pretty swiftly.
- finding a vet could be hard, and fees expensive.

PROS

- They are beautiful, with soft fur, and there is something extremely heart warming about them licking honey off a spoon or your finger.
- They are intelligent and interesting to watch.
- They can bond well with their owners. (NB: The girls I currently have I'm still building trust with, so I can't tell you the advantages of this myself!)
- Now this may just be my experience, as it's only based on a few of the species to date, but they seem to have good temprements. The crabbing can be very loud and a tad shocking but IMO it seems defensive rather than aggressive. A well bred glider shouldn't have this, and the girls I've had have already progressed in two months from crabbing if anything breathes near them to (only just) sitting on the hand and eating food. 
- They are long lived, so will be your companions for some time.

You'd need to look into glider-proofing the rooms where you let them freerange as well, as there are some hazards. I guess an advantage over them rather than the squirrels is that as the squirrels are rodents, they chew wooden things (including you know, wooden shelves and doors and internet cables!!). I don't *think* gliders do to the same extent as their teeth are quite different.

Oh and watch out for American sites, a lot of animals there come from glider 'mills' (think rodent farms...) and care standards are not to the same level. There are some very dodgy youtube videos that are full of misinformation on them


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