Things to Buy

Sugar Glider Paraphernalia

Sugar Gliders need lots of stuff. Very little of this stuff can be bought in stores. Most often you will have to hunt the confusing internet to find safe products made specifically for sugar gliders.

To help navigate this daunting task, below is a list of things to buy when getting started with sugar gliders. I included a few representative links to get you started.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of products or vendors, please use these links as a jumping off point for your own consumer research.

For Facebook users, there are many excellent groups for vendors to advertise their sugar glider goodies. Here is one such group.

If you are a sugar glider product vendor and would like to have your business page linked here please feel free to contact me.

Cage

Minimum 3 ft. tall by 2 ft. wide by 2 ft. deep for 2 gliders. ½ inch bar spacing, powder coating preferred. Don’t get PVC coated, which looks like plastic coating over the bars, because this coating has been known to cause seizures in gliders. PVC pipes are fine, and many good do it yourself cages are PVC pipe frames with hardware netting zipped tied onto the frame. Drop pans are a really nice feature to look for in a cage also.

Double critter nation (DCN), most people do not install the middle floor component to make it a single large cage. We have used this cage and love the big double doors for cleaning and decorating, but they can promote accidental escapes also. Our DCN also rusted on the door panels, but they can be replaced. DCNs drop pans are internal to the cage, but many people make a shelf under the bottom grate using packing tape or similar, to put the drop pan on instead of putting it inside the cage.
The Madagascar is a bit smaller, and fits perfectly in our closet under the shelf. Good size for 2-4 gliders
The Congo is a big one, nice a tall, good for a larger colony. This is the cage our breeding trio is in now.
Brisbane Cage is less expensive than most, and a great size and style.
Or build your own with PVC piping
Avoid small bird cages, cages with sliding doors, glass or smooth sided enclosures, or wood framed custom made cages (they will soak up pee and reek within months)

Cage Set

Cage sets usually come with sleeping pouches, corner hammocks, bridges, ropes, and other misc. items to put in the gliders cage. It’s rare to find anything in a store that is glider safe since they can only have fleece fabric (no cotton or any cross threaded fabric) and must have hidden stitches. Vendors that make glider items usually sell them online, especially in Facebook groups or on Etsy sites. Many vendors do custom orders but you can also find premade sets for better prices if you aren’t picky on the fabric design. A few vendors are:

Sarah's Suggie Shoppe
Sugar Glider Dreams
Treasured Suggie Creations
Tootles' Suggie Shack
Sugar Glider Joy
Or do it yourself with these no-sew instructions. “All you need to know is how to use scissors and tie a knot (for some items, you also need to know how to braid or crochet).”
See bottom of this page for a list of community approved vendors

Water Bottles

A small water bottle is best, we’ve had ones that were too large for them to move the stopper ball. I recommend two per cage. Avoid water dishes, they will pee in them.

Petco bottle for vertical bars
Petco bottle for horizontal bars. This isn’t quite the version we use but looks similar

Exercise Wheel

Wheels should have open fronts, mesh tracks and no center bar. The brands in our cages are stealth and titan, and both work great. There are many other vendors for this style now as well.

Stealth Wheel from Atticworx
Fast-Track Apollo
Fast-Track Treadmill is an alternative to the traditional wheel. Gliders love both, and each of our cages has one of each, but only one or the other is required.
Custom Choice Cruiser is a bouncier, high tension wheel designed to provide a different running experience.
Avoid Wodent wheels. Avoid hamster wheels. At this time, there are not any glider safe wheels in pet stores.
If you choose to use a Wodent Wheel, please use a white plastic tail guard over the center axle to prevent the gliders tail from being caught and pulled off, and to prevent the patagium from being caught and fatally wrapping the gliders body around the bar. Not to be gruesome, but these are incidents which have occurred multiple times with this brand of wheel.

Nail Trim

You likely already own a set of toe or fingernail clippers, these will work fine for gliders and mealworms facilitate the process. If they prove too troublesome there are other options.

Wheel inserts for Fast-Track wheels.
Mesh nail trimming pouch will let their stick out and you can snip them if you’re quick.
You can also DIY some trimmer tracks by bolting sandpaper to the outside of the mesh track. Try not to cover more than 1/3 of the total running track surface unless you plan to remove the tracks every few days. The gliders nails will get too filed down otherwise.

Bonding Pouch

A bonding pouch differs from a sleeping pouch, and they are not often included in a cage set. A bonding pouch zips closed and has a mesh window. They can be single or double layered, and it’s good to have one of each in Michigan’s climate. Any of the vendors linked above could make a bonding pouch also, or there are many available on Etsy, Amazon, or Ebay. For just a basic solid color pouch:

Sugar Glider Joy Bonding Bags
Charming gliders
See bottom of page for a glider community approved vendor list for more options.

Pop-up Tent

In lieu of a glider safe room for out of the cage bonding time, many people use a pop up tent. These are great for a secure place to let the gliders climb and play freely, and are easy to clean.

Genji Tents are often recommended because of their small size and easy use. They can be set up on a decent sized bed if floor space is limited.
Sansbug is similarly easy to set up and pull down, literally in seconds.
Insect-a-Hide Good size for sitting in a chair during bonding time.

Diet Plan

There are tons of diets. If these don’t fit your lifestyle there are others to choose from. A good diet balances protein (poultry, eggs, yogurt, baby food, or staple from a powdered mix), with fresh fruits, leafy greens, and veggies. Additionally good ratio of calcium to phosphorus (2:1 Ca:P is ideal) should be considered when selecting fruits and veggies or supplemented because long term calcium deficiency leads to hind leg paralysis in gliders.

Critter Love Complete (formerly known as HPW Complete). This is the diet I use. It’s a powdered mix I make in the blender and freeze into ice cubes, then serve with fruits, veggies, and leafy greens. The critterlove mix is their protein source and vitamin/mineral supplement.
OHPW Original High Protein Wombaroo Diet. This diet requires buying pollen and HPW powder online, and mixing it in a blender with cooked scrambled eggs and honey. We used this diet for a year or so at first before switching to an instant mix style of this diet.
BML diet this is a blender mix of baby food and similar that has been in use a long time by many breeders. It was developed by Bourbon, who is known as the Glider whisperer in the breeder community. This is a grocery store item diet for the most part.
TPG diet this is another grocery store list diet like BML, but doesn’t call for baby food, though you could use it. It’s a flexible diet that allows for choice and variety, which also means more responsibility on you to be sure you make healthy choices for your gliders.
I strongly recommend against pellet based diets. Many pellet diets have led to discoloration of the gliders fur, a yellowish/rusty brown color. This is a result of nutritional deficiencies and generally takes a few months to a year to grow out after the glider is switched to a more appropriate diet.
Never feed anything containing garlic, onions, rhubarb, catnip, or chocolate, or powders of these

Treats

Live mealworms or dried mealworms. Live mealworms are available in most pet stores but they are small and expensive compared to online ordering them. Mealworms are your best tool for training and bonding. They are essentially crack-coated Scooby snacks to a glider.
Yogurt Drops Any type of yogurt drops will do, including flavored ones. Butterscotch and peanut butter ones are also good, but never chocolate chips.
Monkey Biscuits are good for keeping their teeth clean.
Live or dried crickets/grasshoppers. I have learned to release live ones in a tent or Tupperware container.
Frozen pinky mice, serve fully thawed, available at most pet stores.
Dried fruits and nuts. My gliders are fond of pecans and walnuts, dried papaya and pineapple. Nuts are controversial treats, and you may want to learn more before choosing them as a snack.
Eucalyptus leaves are a nice occasional thing for a treat or bedding stuffer. My gliders don’t eat much of it, but they will pull it into their pouch and sleep on it, which makes the cages smell nicer.
Quail eggs are high in protein, gliders love them, and really, how often do you get an excuse to buy quail eggs?
Almond milk
Bread, mini marshmallows, cheerios, and other such goodies are okay as occasional treats, but are empty calories. Gliders eat very little so it is important that what they eat is reasonably nutritious a reasonable amount of the time.

Fleece

A 3 yard continuous piece of black fleece makes a great cage cover to keep the inside of the cage dim during the day the way gliders prefer. You can get fancy cage covers also, but this works just as well for about $10.
1 yard of any print fleece for each tray liner (I have multiple for easy washing purposes)
Braided fleece makes great climbing toys. Stinky fleece squares make great sleeping blankies that help with bonding. Fleece throws help protect furniture from glider potty breaks. A fleece hoodie with pockets is an excellent bonding outfit.

Toys

I have noticed a few things about how my gliders interact with toys. They do not prefer smooth sided toys that they cannot easily cling to. They prefer darker fabric colors, at least the inner layer if it’s double layered. They love toys they can hide inside of or find food in. They will use toys more often if arranged in a path, put each toy within reach of others, or run a fleece braid between toy stations. They love to pull fronds into pouches to “close the door” and block out light. They like dark areas, so arranging to create a shadowy area will attract them.
Glider toys tend toward colorful, dangly, charm studded, plastic chain laced, drinking straw haired concoctions of fun. There are as many varieties of toys as there are creative glider owners but I will point out a few styles of interest.

Reset toys. Reset toys usually have plastic bracelets on hooks or chains. Reset toys are awesome if your glider is a ‘tail carrier’ which means they like to loop their tail around the bracelets and carry them about. As the name implies, you will have to reset all the bracelets on the hooks each day. Here is one example of a reset toy I own
Ball pits. Ball pits come in many styles and levels of bling, but they are essentially a hanging basket filled with crafting pom poms, or fleece poms, whiffle balls, bracelets or something along those lines. You can get these from various toy vendors, like this one, or easily make one yourself with some hardware mesh and fleece strips.
Foraging toys. Essentially any toy with a cup or bowl for treats can be a foraging toy. It’s nice when the cup is buried in fleece fronds or straws, or something to make them have to look for it a bit.
Other foraging toys have to be opened to get to a treat, like mini treasure chests or plastic easter eggs,
Feathers are amazing for supervised play, but do not leave them in the cage with them.
With a roll of plastic hardware cloth and a few yards of fleece fabric you can make dozens of toys like tunnels, ballpits, swings, glider trees, or even climbable walls.
AVOID hamster balls, their nails get stuck in the air grooves. Also avoid pet store hamster tunnels, they are too small.

Pampered Glider Store

Karen Milas at the Pampered Glider in Redford Michigan opens her home as a walk-in glider toy store. Save on shipping costs and no delays! Contact her to set up a visit and browse a variety of toys, wheels, cage sets, medical kits, and more.

Approved Vendor List

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