My Life with Three Gliders
And My way of saying Goodbye
A Real Story by Thomas Hynes
I can recall sitting down at the computer late one night in December of 2001,
starting to search for infomration on Sugar Gliders. During that Search
I came to this forum, joined and posted a few messages about wanting to
adopt, purchase a glider.
Well After waiting for replies and responding to peoples
questions and trying to locate some Gliders that needed a new home,
A young Lady from the Boston MA area contacted me about adopting
her Mated Pair and their Six Month old son.
The Male was named Ozzy, the Female was named Harriet, and the 6 month old
well he had no name. After talking to her on the phone for an hour or so,
and emailing me back and forth, she had come to the decision that I would make
and excellent "parent" to her family of three gliders.
It was a Sunday Afernoon, about two weeks before Memorial day weekend, my friend and I drove to a movie
theater, showcase, on Route 1, I want to say it was in Saugus, but I can not remember.
What I do remember is the traffic, trying to find her in a crowd of people, and
finally approaching this woman saying, do you have sugargliders. She said THERE YOU ARE.
We walked over to the car and she showed me the gliders. She took an entire hour to talk
to me about these guys, and how she cared for them, and fed them, and answered all of
my questions. MY main concern was that would the pair breed and produce more babies.
She Assured me NO. The Female was already 10 years old, and Male was 9, and that they
were done breeding. She used her pair for
breeders, so they were not tame by any sense
of the word. Even the 6 month old was WILD.
Well after getting all my questions answered, loaded them into the car
and off back to Hartford Connecticut we went.
I immediatly got them set up in their new home.
I Tried with all my effort to get them to
bond, but they were all
to use to be untouched.
Then, on Memorial Day, at about 6pm when I went to go feed them, I heard something.
A wimper, a little voice, and what do you know it was a new baby joey. My heart sank.
How was I going to take care of FOUR GLIDERS!!!! So with some more research I decided to name
the little female joey BINDI.
A decision was made to adopt out the 6 month old son, which I named ADONI (pronounced AH-DON-E ).
I found a young married couple who were searching for something exotic to own. I asked them
to do their research, and come back to me in two weeks and let me know if this was something that
they wanted to have. Well they did come back and adopted ADONI with open arms, and they were able to work
with him so that he was tame and just adored both new owners. I was glad, I had made the right
choice, and now I was left with just three gliders right? WRONG...in September of 2002, mh female once
again had another Joey, I now had FOur GLIDERS!!!! I was just like what in the world did I get myself
into here. So with another search on the internet, I found the name Alyria AH - LEER- AH.
I made the decision to adopt out ALYRIA, she was given to the same family that adopted Adoni, but Adoni
had been neutered three months back, so I had no concern about them interbreeding. PHEW.....
Well in 2005 I moved from Hartford to Wolcott Connecticut, about 32 miles away, and a bit
further south, but ontop of a mountain so Winter comes about 3 weeks early, and spring comes about
4 weeks later then the rest of the world.
So now My glider family was happy. I started calling Harriet MAMA, and OZZY PAPA, and of course
Bindi BINDI.
In the Fall of 2006 MAMA had gotten Ill, she had stopped eating, and was loosing weight, and so, thank god,
I was working for a SPECIALIZED
vet at the time, DR GIDDINGS. AND my Neighbor, DR. CIANCIOLO was my
neighbor, and worked for DR. GIDDINGS, so all the pieces of the puzzle were in place for good
quality health care for my Gliders. The Decision by DR. C and I was made to euthianize MAMA.
There really was not much that could be done for her. So in October of 2006, Mama was laid to rest. She had
reached a ripe old age of 15.
Now it was Just PAPA and Bindi.
Life went on for another year, when I discovered that PAPA had a peice of string wrapped around
his testicles. LET THIS BE A WARNING....a thread from a TSHIRT that I had used as bedding for their
ceramic nest box, got tangled...he became castrated. Again under the expert care of Dr. C, she
performed surgery on him to remove the necrotic tissue.
Life for Bindi and PAPA went on as usual. till July of 2008 when unknown to me, that it appeared that
BINDI had somehow contracted a respitory infection. she was lethargic one night, and did not eat, and so
I decided to spend sometime with her. I took her in my hands and I could hear the RASPY breathing.
I knew that her lungs were filled with fluid, but so late at night, and with no where to go, I decided I would take her to the
vet the following morning. Unfortunatly she passed away in my hands. She was only 6 years old.
PAPA was a bit agitated for a few nights, and he was awake during the day and evening hours, only sleeping
here and there. I got home last night, and found that he had passed away. He had reached an age of 16, just
missed his 17th birthday by about 15 days. He will be laid to rest later today, next to his family, in the garden, near
day lillies. So when the bloom I will think of all three of them.
So that is my life with sugargliders. And I am thankful that I had them. But I personally
have made the decision not to have another one. For my life is to busy now to give the care and
true attention that they need. For if I did, this story may not have been posted for another few
years.
So keep an watchful eye on your gliders. And if you suspect that something is wrong
get MEDICAL attention ASAP. Small animals like this can and do hide their symptoms, and
go go down hill quickly.
These Three Gliders were Great and they will be missed
Thomas Hynes