Basic Sugar Glider Care - Bonding
The health and happiness of your baby sugar glider will ultimately depend on the bonding process - how it connects with you and your family. A baby sugar glider is extremely susceptible in its first few weeks of life and can even bond to the inanimate objects that make up the interior of your home - for this reason we recommend that, when out of their cage, you keep very young sugar gliders in your hands or about your person. Limiting their movements to such close quarters will create a much greater bond between the sugar glider and you and your family.
The depth of the bond between you and your sugar glider will depend on how much time you spend with it in the first few weeks that it lives with you. The bonding process will occur both more quickly and more effectively in direct relation to how much time you spend together. We recommend a period of a couple of days of de-stress time upon arrival at your home before you begin to take them out of the cage. Sugar gliders will recognize you by your smell, so by putting an article of your clothing in its cage by the heat rock will improve the bonding process.
An important factor to keep in mind during the early days and weeks is the newness of the sugar glider’s surroundings. After its very early life in its mother’s marsupial pouch, your baby is used to a tight, dark, warm space. This gives a clue as how best to care for it when it is scared. A scared sugar glider will begin to chatter and may swipe like a bear. In this instance, you must hold it FIRMLY to create the tight, dark, warm space it is used to in order to calm it down.
