JillMarie has given us some great thread with Ensure Nutrition Facts and others experience (thank you). But I had a few more questions as I am digging deep into the understanding of diets, choices in recipes and ratios....

My questions are:

in almost all other diets you will find baby cereal (or oats, or wheat germ type) as well as apple juice why not in the Ensure (Darcy) diet?

Is hpw supplement, bee pollen and/or honey not given with Ensure because Ensure has appropriate vitamins already and that is all the hpw, pollen and honey do?

As for the sodium comment given by Guerita in JillMaries original post, I was looking at sodium contents and for Ensure product listed by Jillmarie they range between 200mg and 290mg, HPW has 598mg (from my understanding, could be wrong on that one)and BML has 220mg, LGRS suggie soup has 384mg, and Blended diet has 350mg (to name some of the more used diets).... so it looks to me like the Ensure products are in range of many of the diets used no matter the Ensure type. Is this correct? Is there still a concern then?

For those feeding Ensure, do you feed your fruits and veggies freely or do you pick certain ones every night to equal proper ratio? Also, how many different fruits and veggies do you feed per night with Ensure?

How many different protein sources do you provide? One per night or mixed sources? What types are favored between you and your gliders?

I am sorry you have not received any responses yet. I sent an email to someone who will hopefully be able to come in and address some of your questions, hang in there! In the meantime you can go to my website below to 2 links, 1)diet I feed and 2)Ensure smoothie recipe!

WOW lots of questions! I will see how I can help...




hope that helped some. forgot to add, I stay away from apple juice. I use honey and pollen in my diet because that is a natural food source for them in the wild. Although the honey is really eaten as nectar, and not really as honey in the wild. Protein should be roughly 20% of the diet. I give a small bit of chicken every other night mixed in a "stew"

protein 20% of diet? Now I have not heard that. I have heard mostly 50%. Remarkable difference, may I ask where you got your info on that percentage?

from a couple of reports, Rosemary Booth, reports like that. I can try to locate them for you, but it may take me some time,

trust me, I wouldnt come up with a figure like that out of my head

added: still looking, found two report I have printed out that say "AT LEAST 20%" protein.

I also read a few things that show excess iron in the diet may affect liver conditions.

Seems a little low to me.

I have heard anywhere from 20-50%. But I think there was a discussion once (or twice) on taking into account available protein versus just the amount of protein foods you feed.

I have heard about 35%(ish) more often than any other amount over the years.

Too much protein can cause problems as well and I remember some (anecdotal) conversations that if you have a liver or kidney compromised glider, lower protein levels are actually better as too much protein can be difficult for the body to process. I specifically say anecdotal above because although I'm sure I have some of the conversations around somewhere, or there is something in the archives, I don't know have the links on hand to give you to read, and I know some of those conversations were based on personal experience, not on scientific documentation.

Yes it true that if you have kidney/liver disease it's best to be on the lower side. I "personally" think 20% all the time is too low though? Not all protein is the same too, depends on what some people feed as "protein".

I agree 20% is on the lower end of the spectrum that I have heard, as I said - I have heard right around 35% the most often.


Agreed, that's what I was talking about with the 'available' protein.

I have been re-reading everything I have on glider diets and it seems that some say 25% and some say 50% and some say anywhere in between. Peggy's book references 25%.

I will say that rereading everything has made me look at other values in diets, such as vit A, vit D, and iron. There are references to iron and that too much in a diet inhibits other nutrient absorption. So how much is too much? The only reference I could find was between .5IU/g dry weight and 1.5IU/g dry weight was considered optimum range.

I will also throw in here that I found a few references to using natural maple syrup in the diet, which I have been doing for quite some time, as it most closely copies what they would eat in the wild. (funny though when ever I bring that up, people tell me its not a good idea.) Remember that wild gliders live on tree sap, euc and acacia being the faves it seems, pollen, nectar, insects, and whatever small animal/egg they can get their hands on, and gliders have been seen foraging on the ground, and any seeds, nuts they might happen upon. I say this as it is what I have READ and not seen myself.

Back on topic...Ensure...while I like the idea of using it once a week, I am still so very concerned about over supplementing our little friends. over doing it causes so many more problems that are not reversible opposed to under doing it which can be "fixed" when found in time.

Mysugarfix:


Did you calculate the amounts of sodium your self from the recipe ingredients or are these numbers from the posted recipes on Glider Gossip? It appears that these amounts are for the full recipe of the listed diets and for an 8 oz bottle of ensure.

In order to really compare the amounts on an equal basis you need to either calculate to a per glider portion amount or to a standard amount (100 g is the commonly used amount).

Keep in mind, Peggy is just a glider owner. She is not a vet, a nutritionalist nor does she have any scientific research to back it up (nor does she claim to be).

Unfortunately, that is the case MOST of the time because there has been very little scientific research done on gliders.

In the wild, their diets are based on bio availablity and it varies with the season. During some parts of the year, their natural intake may be 50% or even more...while other seasons it may be 20% or less. So, what most do is try to find the medium and base their captive diets off that.

Many "diets" suggest offering pregnant/nursing moms more protein but I'm not convinced that is necessary. By offering more protein, gliders seem to breed more often compared to their wild counter parts (wild gliders breed once or twice a year, captive much more often which I don't believe is good).

For me, I never "advise" ensure as a diet staple because there are those that will NOT take the time to provide proper OTHER foods (such as chicken, eggs or whatever) and I've seen first hand how damaging that can be to a glider.

I am curious now as to whether or not the ensure, IF FED as only PART of a diet provides essential (again, just what is "essential" to a glider?) nutrients much like the Wambaroo does. If it basically is it similiar to what Wambaroo would be if Wambaroo was made into nectar form?

Useable protein is also in question. An egg has more "useable" protein than the same amount of cooked chicken.

THIS is what I am wanting to know!

as for protein, how does one figure THAT out if its "useable" or not?

LOL, if I had the education and degrees that would let me KNOW that...I'd be making a WHOLE lot more money!


Seriously, all you can do is research and more research. Find those that have done the research and then verify if they are "educated" and if their research is valid or just going of "other's work".

There's a thread in the archives somewhere about forms of protein and what is crude protein etc....

Ottemom: Yes GG was the first place I looked and used for the sodium comparison. But I did it quickly and understand that it should all have been under the same weight
.... I am sorry about that my response time is short and sporadic around my day so I try to get as much done as quickly as I can.

Jullmarie: thank you for answering each question that was great!

Cora: Thank you for the diet recipe and smoothies too!

I am curious about the maple syrup... is it like from the tap Vermont type maple syrup? Is its nutritional value like that of pollen and honey? When I have used honey in my staple diet my gliders eventually would leave it for me to trash the next day So I am trying to figure out how to get a staple diet at the 2:1 ratio without the use of honey or pollen (as REEPS is a 1.2:1, just not happy with that number).

I was also wondering, when you use the term nectar are you talking about a homemade concoction or a certain nectar product you purchase?

Oh and one more question when you are looking at ingredients labels, I know I am going to sound dumb on this, how do you calculate calcium and phosphorus in mg? And how do you find the Phosphorus... they do not seem to provide that many of the times so where is everyone getting this info?

My Sugar Fix - Most nutrition labels are based on a Human 2000 calorie diet and the recommend daily amount of 1000 mg Calcium. So 30% of the daily recommended calcium would be 300 mg in the serving amount indicated on the label. Do not confuse the serving amount with the package amount. The package may contain 1 1/2, 2 or even 10 servings - that information is also in the "Nutrition Information" box.

For more detailed information on most foods you can go to
http://nutritiondata.self.com/ which will allow you to look up specific foods and does include both calcium and phosphorus in the list of minerals.

If you only want to look up amounts you would be feeding your glider, my diet Calculator will give you the values in TBS (or a fraction of a TBS) portions. The calculator includes calcium, phosphorus, ratio, protein, sugar, fat and fiber.

i just wanted to say thanks to everyone... cause I saw I hadn't after the last few posts

For such little creatures there is a lot of research and understanding (especially if you aren't the lemming type LOL)