Methods for Bonding with your Sugar Gliders

Bonding with your sugar glider is crucial for the owner and your sugar glider.  This is very important for good handling techniques and checking on the well being of your glider.  Bonding works best at a younger age for you and your sugar glider but gliders at all ages can be bonded with it just takes time.

Some techinques that you can use are:

• Using a old t-shirt.  This is one of the first bonding methods you should use for a glider that you adopt, buy, are given.  You wear a t-shirt without wearing cologne or perfume and after a day place the shirt in the cage for about a week.  This allows your glider to get use to your smell and bond to your scent.
• The tent method.  Go get a two person tent the one I use is the this great Mountain two person tent. You place the gliders and yourself in the tent after using the t-shirt method listed above.  This allows the gliders or glider to be a enclosed area , this allows them to come to you when they feel comfortable.   This allows them to get use to your presence.  

• Try using a sugar glider bonding pouch with a zipper this way you can place the sugar glider in the zipper pouch and place them like a necklace around your neck and let the pouch sit next to your heart.  Just like a baby animal they will bond to you with your heartbeat.  This is easy to do in all weather climates you can place in under your shirt or hoodie or sweatshirt.

• Try using treats to get on their good side. Yogurt on your your finger tip, yougurt drops, mine gliders love the mealworms and if I hold one out they shoot right over and grab it.  This shows them they can trust you.  Check out other foods you can use at Sugar Glider diet foods.

Things to remember is that when your sugar glider starts to crab or nip you don't back off this shows them that when they do crab or bite it will get them what you want and away from them.  Never swat or hit your glider this can and will hurt your gliders feelings toward you. After they are bonded to you you wont get bit or snapped at.  Many say gliders won't crab at you when they are bonded to you but they do.  Also the glider when bonded will go to your pocket or pouch to ride along with you.

Bonding can take from 1 week to months but once they are bonded to you the benefits are well worth it because they can start learning how to glide to you or ride in your t-shirt pocket or jump from a stranger to your shoulder.

I will be posting instructions on how to train your glider to jump to you on command.