How to Bond With Your Sugar Glider
The three most important aspects to bonding with your new sugar glider are:
Time
Treats
Consistency
Time
When sugar gliders first come to you, they are probably scared. It is a new environment with new sights, sounds and smells. They will crab at you a lot and will probably try to hide from you. This is normal. The most important thing is to give the process time. Be patient. Every bit of positive time you spend with your glider will increase their comfort and friendliness with you. You need to make them trust you. Help them see that you are safe. You can do this by:
Speaking gently to them
Not grabbing at them, but instead, letting them come to you
Not recoiling or getting angry when they crab or nip
Petting them softly
Holding them in their pouch or giving them a place on your person to hide
Playing with them
Giving them treats
Treats
Treats are one of the easiest way to bond with your glider. It helps build trust. They see you as a provider of good things. Even the most timid glider will usually come out for their favorite treat. Start by feeding them treats through the cage bars, then when they are comfortable, see if they will come to you for a treat. Some of our glider’s favorite treats are yogurt drops and live meal worms. You can also give them fruits or vegetables. Don’t give them more than a couple treats a day though as they can easily become overweight.
Consistency
Lastly, try to be consistent. When possible, try to spend time with them everyday, and at roughly the same time of day. This will help them become familiar and comfortable with their environment and with you.
Active vs Passive Bonding
The things I have mentioned above are all active ways that you can bond with your gliders. There are also some significant passive ways you can bond as well. Sugar gliders are very scent oriented. You can familiarize them with your scent by taking a small piece of fleece fabric and sleeping with it in your pillow for a couple days. Then put the fabric in their sleeping pouch. This will introduce them to your smell in a low stress way. Another great way of passive bonding is wearing them in a pouch under your shirt during the day while they are sleeping. We often just take their sleeping pouch out of their cage when they all crawl back into it for the morning and stick it under our shirts. Not only does this familiarize them with your scent, it also shows them that you are safe, and it is a good way for you to bond with them.
A couple notes about bonding
If you have multiple people that you want your sugar gliders to bond with, you can do this by all spending time with the gliders together, or taking turns. We have 6 people in our family. Initially just my husband and I would spend time with the suggies, then we started bringing one child at a time in. Once the gliders seemed more comfortable around us, we allowed more kids in at a time. Some nights all six of us play with them together. Some nights we take turns. The sugar gliders have bonded well with every member of our family
Bonding tents are a great item for new sugar gliders. You can purchase a pop-up mosquito net tent on Amazon for around $30. When we first brought our gliders home, we only took them out in the tent. This is for a couple reasons– One is that, since they were not comfortable with us, we did not want them to run off and be unable to catch them. Second, since the tent is a small environment, it encourages the gliders to climb on you and get used to you.
Go at their pace. Some sugar gliders will warm up to you quickly, some may take more time. We have one that we got as an adult that started coming up to see us every time, right from the beginning, and one we got as a joey that still sometimes hides. They have personalities and moods of their own. When you first bring them home, go slowly. Maybe they do not want to come out of their pouch, so you just pet the pouch and give them treats in their cage. This is ok. The more time you spend with them, the friendlier and more comfortable they will become. Your time and patience will pay off.
Start the Process Today!
We will discuss the process in more detail and get you started on the road to owning your first Sugar Gliders.