So I've done my research and I'm ready to make the jump into the glider world, but I'm having a hard time deciding if I want males or females. My main question is how bad do intact males smell? I'm leaning toward females, but curious as to how strong the smell of an intact male is.

IMO it's in your best interest to neuter males if you don't want to breed. Two intact males can (and from what I've read, will) fight.

I have heard that neutered males make better pets, too.

The females pee doesn't really have an odor, other that the pee odor of course. But intact males do have a slightly stronger smell. I hear that if you get them neutered, the smell gets way better. If you don't, you do get used to the smell after a while.

I know you probably want girls, but the boys are usually nicer and a better first experience. I got two girls for my first gliders and I swear, one of them was a spawn of satan, lol. She needed a lot of extra love and attention to bring her around. Now she's a little angel. But when I got my two boys, I didn't know what to do with myself. They were SO sweet from day 1.

Good luck!

Meghan, I don't agree that the boys are usually nicer. I think it depends on the glider. I've got a boy and a girl, and my girl is an absolute sweetheart.

I've heard from a lot of people that, in general, boys are nicer and more outgoing from the beginning. Obviously people such as Sara have had other experiences though.

I don't really notice any smell from having 3 neutered males. Intact males are probably different and you often can't keep with other males anyway. The debate of male or female comes down to a debate of whether you want to go through neutering or not. All of mine came neutered so it wasn't an issue.

In both sets of gliders I have from much different situations the girls ended up being nicer. I have one boy that is very outgoing and always out climbing on me. The other 2 have earned nicknames like brat and I actually named one evil in a native american language. They have both drawn blood on me and bit more times than I can count. The females I could name every single incident and most times they had a really good reason that still resulted in no more than a slight nip. So mine are 1 for 2 in nice males and 2 for 2 in nice females.

I personally prefer the smell of the intact males better than the smell of the neutered males or females. I don't know why.

I personally thing that they have a syrupy smell to them. In my opinion they smell MUCH better then hamsters/ferrits and rabbits, but thats just me. I think it also depends on diet and cage cleanings.