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Which fruits do you feed with HPW???

Posted By: Guerita135

Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 08:36 PM

Sorry everyone, I know I'm always asking so many questions lately, I must be getting annoying by now, lol.

Here's my question for the hour:

Which fruits do you feed with HPW?

I've been doing some research on that diet and read on another forum that in order to get the correct cal:phow leverls you need to feed fruits and veggies that are near the 2:1 mark, like with BML, because the diet alone is lacking a bit in the calcium area.

I have checked many different cal:phos lists and there are plenty of veggies that are 2:1(or near there), but there are only 3 fruits: prickly pears(which can not be fed to gliders), figs, and backberries(which can only be fed sparingly). frown Oh yeah, and a bunch of citrus fruits, but aren't those only supposed to be a rare treat as well?

Am I missing certain fruits, or is that it? Also, if I were to feed higher calcium ratio veggies, would that balance it out?

I'm not feeding this diet at the moment, but I'm always on the lookout for better stuff. wink
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 09:02 PM

I almost ALWAYS feed Papaya because it has a GREAT calcium to phosphorous ratio, and the gliders LOVE it. You can definitely feed higher calcium veggies if you wanted to.. Spinach is 2:1
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 09:12 PM

I feed papaya (fresh or dried) frequently, and usually pair it with corn/peas/green beans. I feed a lot of greens (collards, kale, spinach, romaine, etc) which my guys LOVE, and usually pair it with melons (honeydew, cantaloupe or watermelon), apple (peeled), grapes (occasionally), strawberries, blueberries, blackberries (messy; occasionally), avocado (high in fat, but definetly a favorite).

Sometimes they'll get some mango (not a favorite), kiwi, oranges, sweet potato, brocolli, zuchinni and/or cucumber.

HTH.
Posted By: Guerita135

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 10:40 PM

Ok, Paypaya, that's another one for the list. wink Any others?

Ceratinly there MUST be other fruits that are high on the list. frown Maybe starfruit or something?
Posted By: LSardou

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 10:51 PM

Hopefully some of these links will help.

Safe Fruits and Veggies
Ca:Ph Ratios - 1
Ca:Ph Ratios - 2
Ca:Ph Ratios - 3
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 10:54 PM

As far as fruits go, other than the papaya, i haven't found many that have a positive ca:ph ratio .. BUT what i usually do is get some fresh spinach and chop it REALLY REALLY FINE.. even can put it in a blender. Then you can sprinkle it over their favorite foods..

you can also do the same with collard greens.

I have to be deceptive with my suggies cause all they REALLY like is corn and sweet peas.. so i get creative and it works.. all of the spinach was gone the next day because it was covering all of their favorite foods.
Posted By: CharmedSuggies

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 10:58 PM

Do you give them the spinach raw or cooked?
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 11:05 PM

I sometimes use raw spinach but you have to make sure you clean it REALLY GOOD..

I also use frozen spinache and just thaw it a little in some hot water and then chop it up with scissors and put the veggies in the water with the spinach, stir and then drain.. its pretty effective in covering the other veggies.
Posted By: CharmedSuggies

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 11:09 PM

Thankyou Lindsay! Just wanted to make sure if it made a difference raw or cooked.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 11:14 PM

I thought spinach, being high in oxalates, prohibited calcium absorption? So, while being high in calcium, it actually negates itself and the calcium of the other food you're feeding...

Mind don't get spinach anymore...
Posted By: CharmedSuggies

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 11:21 PM

Did not know that til now. thanks for the info, won't be trying spinach!
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 11:50 PM

oxalates do not prohibit the absorbtion of calcium, phosphorous does.. Oxalates are a harder form of calcium, they are more solid. its like when a human takes a manufactured vitamin.. they are hard and solid.. your body only absorbs a portion of it because of how solid it is..

oxalate acid will lower the absorbtion on calcium in HUMANS to only about 5% of the total calcium absorbed from spinach but small animals are different. In most small animals that masticate their food have something in their saliva that breaks down oxalates into more digestable minerals - and the end result is calcium.
Posted By: CharmedSuggies

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/11/07 11:53 PM

Wow, very informative Lindsay. Ok, so back to trying the spinach! lol Thankyou for clearing that concern up!
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 12:01 AM

Well, i am not vet.. but i have talked to vets about it because it was brought up when we were talking about some kinda of cactus form mexico... So i researched and asked and found out that because of the way they chew and chew and then spit out the solids, their saliva does a lot more work than ours does.. we rely only on our stomach acide, but the gliders have that AND thier saliva
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 12:03 AM

LAG, where'd you find your references?

Everything I've read said that oxalates bind solubale calcium, thus making it insoluble and therefore un-absorbable by the body.

I'm not sure why masticating would have any influence, seeing as how oxalates are harder to break down than most vitamins/minerals.
Posted By: Srlb

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 12:17 AM

Lag I would like to see where you got that info as well.

I was told by my vet the same thing as stated here:

Quote:
oxalates bind solubale calcium, thus making it insoluble and therefore un-absorbable by the body.


And although the foods COULD be fed, they should be fed in moderation.
Posted By: Bubbles8i8

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 12:25 AM

Melissa, you can't take the word of any one person as fact. You should research the benefits and risks of spinach on your own so you can be confident that you are well informed. smile I just had to laugh at how you assumed the first person who posted was correct, then when someone else posted to negate that info you changed your mind again.

Not saying that anyone who has posted is incorrect, just saying that doing your own research never hurt anyone.



Linda~ I love the last link you posted! Great info. smile
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 12:25 AM

Does this concern relate specifically to spinach, or does it affect the other dark, leafy greens like collards, beet greens, romaine, arugala?

I give these almost daily...so...I'd really like to know. I asked the question before, and was told all leafy greens were basically excellent to feed, if the gliders would eat them. Apparently, a lot of gliders don't care for them?

Anyways...
Posted By: CharmedSuggies

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 12:29 AM

lol, I know Linda. I was busy at the time doing several things at once and didn't take the time I should have.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 12:37 AM

Pasta, you are reading about it in humans, not in animals that masticate their food. The truth (what i was told) is that calcium oxalates are very easily broken down if you have the right chemical compounds and bacterial organisms working together.

chloride salts are one thing that increses the solutbility in calcium oxalate and although humans have forms of chloride salts in their saliva, sugar gliders have more AND use it more because of the WAY they masticate thier food.

If you were to look into the mastication and absoption of calcium from EUCALYPTUS you will see that many animals get calcium from EUCALYPTUS but that calcium is in the form of calcium oxalates. From what i understand, most leafy veggies that contain calcium are in the form of calcium oxalates, it is just that someanimals are more well equipped to utilize that calcium.

I don't have the exact break down of what sugar glider saliva is made up of, but i DO have what HUMAN saliva is made up of. From what I am told, most of our saliva has the same basic composition, it is the quantity of certain minerals, and chemicals are what makes us all different...

Please PM me for the composition if your interested.




Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 12:54 AM

again, i am going by my own research and talking to a vet, I am in NO WAY a vet nor a professional researcher so i CAN be wrong, but to me the information i got, and the information that i found to corroborate the intial information i found made sense..

Basically my finders were:
Oxalates bind solutable calcium (and other minerals) the calcium oxalates are ALREADY BOUND molecules of calcium. So they are in OXALATE FORM.

In order to make the calcium oxalate crystals more soluable, you need certain OTHER molecules, bacteria, and chemicals to work together. One of those is chloride salts.

I have a eco-chem. PDF that touches on the break down of minerals in plants and the use of saliva in herbavores in order to break down oxalates. It is a BIG file, and a lot of it is useless because it talks more about insects rather than mammals..

I also found a study where a mexican wood rat had shown that it very easily obtained it's calcium from a cactus which contained only calcium oxalates.
Posted By: BeckiT

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:00 AM

I was also told the same thing as Peggy and Hayley about the oxalates in spinach from my exotics vet when we had the iguanas. They require a ca:ph ratio similar to gliders, but spinach and several other greens are a no-no because of the oxalates in them. With the iguana, we stuck to mustard and dandelion greens (I think the other was kale..)
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:05 AM

Almost all dark leafy greens are high in oxalates..

I have a link that shows that even dandelion leaves are quite high in oxalates.

I am not saying that your vet was wrong, but it is VERY possible that when you were talking about oxalates and your iguanas, they were not taking in to concideration a diet of sugar gliders.

I am not saying the spinach is not high in oxalates, i'm saying that gliders, and other animals that eat eucalyptus and other leafy greens will be able to digest them.

Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:07 AM

And among further research, i found that mustard greens also are concidered to have a high amount of oxalates along with green beans, strawberries, and many many more...
Posted By: Srlb

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:09 AM

I understand what YOU are saying Lag, however...

I think I will follow what my VET who went to school for over 12 years for exotic specialites says...

It is very good to know you do your research however. One thing to keep in mind...

a wood rat is a rodent
a glider is a marsupial...

TOTALLY different DNA wink
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:14 AM

I understand that a woodrat is a rodent. I was just using it as a comparison to show that it is VERY VERY possible that an animal COULD be able to dissolve oxalates and digest them unlike humans.. I was also using it because it was something that i have on paper for people to read for themselves.

I'm not trying to tell everyone to disregard their vets and listen to me.. But just know that i am not just going by what i read on the internet and in some books. I am ALSO going by my vet who has been practicing for 20 years and is one of the #1 sgar glider vets in my state. Its not an unfounded statement.

I do want you guys to know though, that all the things that are concidered low in oxalates really arent all that low.. So if you want to avoid counting calcium oxalate in with the ca:ph ratio because it is not digested (in your opinion) then you should really find out exactly how much of the calcium in your diets comes from oxalates, i think it will surprise you.
Posted By: BeckiT

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:17 AM

Iguanas are fed on a diet that consists largely of leafy greens wink

there is a partial list of the oxalate content in greens here

and if you scroll down a little on this page, you'll see the selected nutrients in selected greens chart, which lists spinach, turnip greens and kale as high in oxalates
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:26 AM

My point is that no matter how high the oxalate content is, sugar gliders are able to digest it..

I actually just read that humans CAN digest oxalates and absorb calcium in oxalate form as well as long as they CHEW THEIR FOOD and have a healthy digestive tract. This just goes to show that the fact that sugar gliders masticate their food completely and do not swallow without chewing their food completely, they should/could be able to digest the oxalates in spinach.

Iguanas, on the other hand, do not chew their food at all, and their natural environment may not have leafy greens that contain a lot of oxalates. (i really have no idea) BUT sugar gliders DO. They eat EUCALYPTUS in the wild which is also known to have high content of oxalates.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:38 AM

i also just read that frozen veggies have less oxalates than raw.. so if you want to feed spinach, but are on the fence about calcium, try feeding frozen rather than fresh/raw
Posted By: Guerita135

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:47 AM

Thsnk you for the links LSardou. I'm checking them out right now. smile
Posted By: BCChins

Re: Which fruits do you feed with HPW??? - 12/12/07 01:57 AM

LAG can you please PM me who you vet is?

Thank You
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