What are some good proteins that you all use when you feed the Ensure diet? (or any other diet that has a staple protein like this)

Just curious!

I'm getting my first babies tomorrow and I'm all excited and nervous and I'm going into hyper-nesting mode

Most diets have been worked out already to include the proteins needed.

You can look at the different diet comparisons on Candy's site. Glider kids.com

Here is a link on the Darcy diet , and here and more interesting reading here

From one of the threads above:

If I'm not mistaken, the original Ensure diet, aka Darcy's diet, was deleted, so what you do find on it is conflicting and nobody knows for sure.

Also worthy to note is that this diet was initially created for an extremely ill glider who needed extremely high amounts of calcium.

My gliders are on Darcy's diet and every night they each get two mealworms and a small piece of chicken breast.

I have fed the Ensure diet for several years and alternate using scrabbled eggs, boiled eggs, boiled or roasted chicken breast ( shredded ), browned turkey burger ( I brown it, drain it in a strainer, then run hot water over it to make sure I get as much fat out as possible ), and yogurt as my proteins. All my cooked meats and eggs are done with NO oils, fats, or spices.

I have also started, about 6 months ago, adding a small amount of alcohol free liquid milk thistle to my ensure along with the calcuim citrate. I don't think I can post dosages on here, but you can pm me. I did this with my vets approval, and I would suggest before starting anything new, to talk to your vet first also. It seemes like too many gliders are having liver issues. And since it is hitting gliders on all sorts of diets, we decided to add the milk thistle as a preventative step.

Can you please PM me the dosage that your vet suggested? My vet suggested this too, I would like to compare their recommendations.

can you both PM me after you talk, so I can see what your comparisons were? lol

We do know for sure. Several of us have the original diet plan copied and it is posted around the web somewhere too, I'm sure. It has been posted on GC (correctly) several times. It's just that the link we most commonly used, for several years, isn't around anymore.

I have been reading all of these thread's about Darcy's diet for a long time and I think it's worth setting the record straight. I used to feel much like many people did, that this was a sick glider diet, but that isn't entirely accurate.

So for clarification;
There is a significant discussion (several actually) about Darcy's diet in GC's archives under Darcy's diet. Some of those threads even include posts from Darcy's owner, Donna (aka saharanfox, although I do not think she is registered any longer).

Darcy's diet was originally created with the help/input/approval of exotic vets at Cornell University. Because the diet worked so well for Lord Darcy (the glider it is named after), Donna started feeding a slightly (and I do mean only slightly) modified version of it to her other gliders. Use as a regular diet with normal, healthy gliders was approved by her vets at Cornell University. This 'normal' diet is the diet she continued to maintain with all of them, including Lord Darcy some time after he went into remission. The last I heard, she was still using this diet with ALL of her gliders and they were healthy and thriving.

The difference between the 'sick' diet and the regular diet is that the sick diet generally includes more protein and/or fat to help keep/put weight on and keep the glider active/interested (it had nothing to do with higher calcium needs).

Darcy's diet has been fed for years to sick and healthy gliders alike. Some people have good results and some do not like their results, but this is true with EVERY single diet out there.

I will post the diet here again, for anyone that is looking for it. Please also read through the old threads if you are interested in more information, there is a lot of valuable discussion there.

Darcy's Diet
One can of Light or Regular Ensure (any but chocolate or coffee flavors) - add 3/8 teaspoons of human grade pharmaceutical Calcium Carbonate powder.

Every night, give; (for each glider, double if feeding 2)
- 1 Tablespoon of the Ensure/calcium mixture, (more or less depending on appetite and/or weight) in a bowl or trough feeder (powdered calcium will clog a water bottle).
- Variety of fruits & veggies (no large amounts of any one thing)
- About a tablespoon of protein source per glider (amount depends on what it is).
Chicken, duck meat, or egg - about one tablespoon per glider
Crickets, wax worms, mealworms, other insect - live, frozen or freeze-dried (up to two tablespoons).

Optional:
- 1/4 acacia gum mixed into 1 bottle of Ensure with calcium powder.
- Mix about a pinch of Nekton for Sugar Gliders powder in about 1-2 Tablespoons of fruit juice
- Zookeeper's Secret - a few pieces per glider.

The problem is determining the EXACT amount of calcium to be added to the can of Ensure.

The original directions posted by Donna stated:



I have been unable to find any information about Ruger's Calcium products. With out knowing how many mg Calcium per TSP in this product the actual mg calcium to add is an unknown quantity. The available information is incomplete.

For example: Now Brand Calcium Carbonate has 1200 mg calcium per TSP so 3/8 tsp would be 450 mg.
Now Brand Calcium Citrate has 700 mg per 1.5 tsp so 3/8 tsp of this product would contain 175 mg.

THAT is a big difference in the amount of calcium contained in 3/8 tsp - and Ruger's could have a different amount of calcium per teaspoon than either of the Now Brand products.

THIS itself is one of the biggest reasons I opted against using this diet for my own gliders, including the ones that truly needed to put on weight when I rescued them, as well as recommending it on my site. I prefer for there to be very little difference just because you choose one brand of item x over another.

I have in my notes that most of the calcium carbonate powders (that I looked into at the time) were pretty close in mg calcium per tsp. I also have that the NOW brand was fine to use, which is what I used when I fed it.

You are comparing the NOW calcium carbonate to NOW calcium citrate - but this is why the calcium carbonate is specified in the original diet plan.

I should add here, that before I started reading through all of the old diet threads, I was one of the people that often said that Darcy's diet was for sick gliders. After reading everything and looking back through my messages from Donna, I had misunderstood. I'm sorry it took me so long to figure out what Donna had been saying for years.

Here is one of Donna's posts about it
http://www.glidercentral.net/ubbthreads/...yone#Post118506

Even different brands of Calcium Carbonate can have different amounts of calcium.

RepCal Calcium is also Calcium Carbonate but has 1050 mg per tsp.
Kirkman's (another human grade brand) has 1000 mg/tsp.

It would just have been more helpful to have a mg amount for the calcium to be added to the Ensure that a volume measurement for a brand product that no longer seems to be available to check the amount of calcium it provides.

I don't know about the Carbonate, because I use Calcium Citrate, it's much easier absorbed by the body than Carbonate. I also had a pharmacist figure my dosage. I use 250mg per bottle of ensure. I do add a small amount of warm water to an empty ensure bottle before adding the calcium and shake to desolve the powder, then mix in the new bottle of ensure. It is only maybe a TBS of water, so I don't think it messes the dosage up. No problems in over 6 yrs ( knocking on wood ).

How did your pharmacist determine the amount of calcium to add? Did he have some information on the Ruger's brand that is referenced in the original posts by Donna on the amount of calcium to add?

I'm not sure, I gave her the original Darcy diet info, my average glider weights, and told her that I prefered Citrate. She said it was not exact, but close, so for several months I took in urine samples on all my gliders monthly to check for any crystals or indications of too much calcium and none were found. I also have had x-rays done when acouple of my gliders had to be put under for a mating wound and some neuters and their bone density is great, so not too little either.
Now they each get checked once or twice a year when they have their check ups.

The Ensure diet is not one of the popular ones, but it was the only one I could find that worked with all my suggies. I have two females that can not have anything with apple juice or applesauce and my vet doesn't like all the honey in some of the other diets. I tried another diet for a month and a half and lost 5 joeys when their moms lost their milk. I switched back to ensure and have lost no more joeys.
Everyone has their favorites and no diet works for every glider. But if you do find one that works, stick with it.