Highland Sugar Glider Diet
***Special notice: Anyone feeding a former version of this diet, please note, Boost is now a required part of our diet. Inclusion of Boost in the diet lowers the Vitamin E amount and Calcium Carbonate amount needed to be added to the staple. If you’d like a drill down of the 24 essential vitamins, minerals, and nutrients in this diet, contact me and I will share that evaluation with you. Also, I am no longer recommending the higher sugar content version of our diet.
Ingredients:
1 ea. 23 oz no sugar added applesauce
23 oz water
1 1/2 Cups Kefir or full fat yogurt with live cultures
3 Cups quick cook variety oatmeal
3 ea. chopped boiled eggs (no shell)
7 oz. chopped boiled chicken breast
1 ½ tsp flaxseed oil
1 Tbsp Soybean oil (Wesson)
1 drop (20 IU) Vitamin E oil
2 Tbs Vanilla Boost or Ensure Powder
¼ tsp Vionate Vitamins & Minerals
1 pinch Calcium Carbonate powder
1 tsp Taurine powder
100 micrograms Selenium powder
Feeding Instructions:
Feed 1-2 Tbsp of the above mixture served with 1 tsp sweet peas (frozen) and/or 1 tsp mixed, chopped vegetables per glider per day. Feed extra staple to nursing mothers and mothers with joeys in-pouch - let them be your guide. If they leave a lot, feed less. If they lick the plate, feed more. You can substitute 1 tsp fruits for 1 tsp vegetables occasionally, but we don’t recommend they get this much extra sugar.
Don’t overfeed fruits and vegetables. With this diet gliders get 1 to 2 teaspoons vegetables (and occasional fruit) per glider per day, no more. Overfeeding fruits/vegetables can lead to calcium/phosphorus imbalance. Feed as written only.
Please note if you decide to switch your gliders to this diet you will need to wean them off of their old diet and onto HSG Diet by increasing the percentage of HSG Diet while lowering the percentage of their other diet by 10% per day. Sugar gliders can become addicted to sugar and weaning them from a high sugar diet to HSG may be challenging. Following the 10% change per day rule will help them adjust easier.
The HSG diet is Ca:P balanced as written. The diet contains the three most important immune boosting nutrients that help protect against the most common pathogens – zinc, Vitamin E, and selenium.
You can purchase Vionate Vitamins and Mineral supplement online. Soy bean oil is any cooking oil made from only soy beans, like Wesson oil.
Flax seed oil is carried by Walmart in the cooking oil section.
Calcium Carbonate and Taurine powder can be purchased online from www.bulksupplements.com.
We use Nature’s Bounty brand Vitamin E oil (30,000 IU per bottle) - one drop equals 20 IU - and you can find that online.
Selenium in 100 mcg capsules can be purchased online.
Make sure the selenium you purchase comes in capsule form 100 micrograms per capsule. Just open the capsule and add the powder to the water with the other powdered supplements. Never sprinkle vitamins or supplements directly onto food.
Instructions:
Mix all dry ingredients (Boost or Ensure powder, Vionate vitamins, Calcium Carbonate, Taurine, and Selenium powder - from the capsule) in the water.
In a large bowl add applesauce, water mix, and the Kefir or Yogurt and stir to mix well.
Cut chicken breast into chunks and add to a food processor. Add oils (1 drop Vitamin E oil, Soybean, Flaxseed). Pulse and then process chicken and oils together until the chicken is finely ground. Add boiled eggs without shell to the food processor with the chicken. Pulse 10 or 12 times to break up boiled egg and mix with chicken. Add a little water slowly and pulse, then process on low, until a creamy liquid forms with no lumps. Add this protein mixture to bowl and stir until well incorporated.
Add oatmeal and stir until well incorporated making sure there are no lumps.
If you use yogurt instead of kefir, the staple will be thicker. You can thin by adding water to desired consistency.
Cover and refrigerate for an hour to allow the oatmeal to absorb the liquid. Test the consistency and add a bit more water and stir in if the mix is too stiff.
Freeze portions in ice cube trays or 2 oz condiment cups, and store in Ziploc bags for convenience.
This diet will keep if refrigerated for no longer than a week.
History:
Our diet was designed for us by Dr. Heidi Bissell who is an exotic animal nutritionist. She designs all the diets for all the exotic animals for all the Busch Gardens in the US. We were very lucky to be able to work with her to make a diet that is user friendly and very nutritious.
We have modified the diet slightly under vet supervision. Dr. Bissell was initially not very happy with the amount of sugar still in the diet from the applesauce. The modifications to lower the sugar were very much in line with her assessment of what she created. We have also added one new supplement for immune boosting based on vet recommendations from the Veterinary Merck Manual - selenium. Formerly we had included Ensure or Boost powder as an optional item for nursing moms. We are no longer making that optional, but essential, since it adds adequate zinc to the diet, lowers the need for a lot of extra Calcium, and boosts the Vitamin E content. Vitamin E has always been part of this diet.
We've been feeding the basic diet since 2015, with the new modifications for added immune boost and lower sugar for about 2 years with excellent results.
Side By Side Nutrient Comparison of
Honey vs. Oats
Chicken Feet (Chicken Paws)
Chicken feet are an easy and nutritious treat for sugar gliders. When you prepare the correctly the broth will form a very nice aspic that you can feed to them as a protein boost, or you can use in your own stocks and soups.
Chicken feet are usually labelled as chicken paws in the meat isle of your grocery story. They will have the outer skin removed, but will still have the nails.
Snip of the nails with your kitchen shears. They taste terrible, so get rid of them. Snip off any blemishes, and cut a slit in the pad on the bottom of the feet. Rinse them well.
Boil them for 5 minutes, then strain and rinse. Don’t keep this water. Return them to the stock pot. Cover with two inches of water.
Bring water back to a boil and then reduce the heat to low. Cover and simmer for 4-5 hours, checking once in a while to make sure you haven’t lost too much water.
Remove from the heat and strain over a bowl large enough to catch the broth. The broth will gel once it is refrigerated.
When the feet have cooled they can be fed to the gliders as is, or in chunks. Refrigerate leftovers.
Gliders love them.