Mike I am glad that you have said what I thought all along. I think of the controversy over glider diets all the time, and how some people get so "hot" over the topic. I always think of it like this: As a nutrition major I studied many human diets for weight loss, gain, and various diseases such as diabeties, heart problems, etc. The advice most sound diets teach is to eat a balance of things you like and enjoy. Now everyone at the ADA (american dietetics association) could get together and say lets put this food in the blender and you will eat exactly this meal for breakfast, this meal for lunch and this mean for dinner, and you will have exactly these snacks. I mean could we do that for 15 years. If someone suggested those of you with children to feed your child exactly a "pre made" diet for life would you? I doubt your child would eat it long.

Now Im NOT saying the "pre made" diets are bad. I use them myself. But I am free to vary it. I have a staple but I vary fruits and veggies and sources of protein adn meat. And yes I give my sydney a piece of beef or venison now and then. I give her all types of veggies and fruits. I also give her treats adn when I treat myself to a limeade at sonic I always give her the strawberry out of the soda!

I do this because she likes it. We all treat ourselves to a coke, ice cream, chocolate, whatever it be. Treat your glider. Though I stress the key is MODERATION. Everything is ok in MODERATION. 5 Snacks a day are not good.. but a treat is good if you use it in moderation.

MODERATION is the key to weightloss, general health, and management of many conditions in humans so I say it must be in gliders as well.

The only thing that really concerns me is that it seems a lot the major diets supplement at least some of the vitamins and/ or minerals. I think Darcys diet w/ the Ensure might be ok because a lot of vitamins come in the ensure instead of being supplemented through a powder or liquid in the water, though I have not researched Darcys diet to the extent of the others so I will keep my comments reserved.

All dietitians will tell you it is better to get vitamins and minearls from foods and from natural sources and not powders. The reason is because they are the purest forms and absorbed better. The FDA does not monitor human vitamin supplements so I have my serious doubts that animal vitamin supplements would be regulated. Could be wrong. But what this means is that when you go by vitamins it can say the vitamin has 100% of the daily value of Vitamin A, but it could really have only 25%. IT could have 2000% of Daily Value of Vitamin A. But since as of now the FDA does not regulate this it is not a crime to say this on the back of the box. So presuming animal supplements are not monitored how do we know that the calcium supplement we give actually has as much calcium as it says on teh box? We dont really unless we put it in lab tests. I dont have a lab...

So it seems this could apply to gliders and make sense that it is better for them to eat a calcium sourse or vitamin source as opposed to eating a powder, etc. Now supplementing vitamis is not bad, but it is better from natural foods. Is there any diet that gives most of them including calcium from the food I wonder? I think BML seems to naturally have a lot of vitamins but it still supplement calcium is this correct?

Please do not think I am slamming anyones diet, this is just how I plan to monitor my gliders diets, and with my knowledge of nutrition and supplementation, it just makes the most sense to me thus far....

Does anyone know if animal supplements are regulated? I would like to know

Very interesting! I wonder, as well.

In regards to more natural sources of calcium, here's something I read from an email by Caroline Macpherson, author of Sugar Gliders: A Complete Owners Manual

"...Remember, not all fruits are created equal. Some have good calcium to phosphorus levels (more calcium than phosphorus) and these should be favored in the diet. The reason that calcium/phosphorus ratios
are emphasized so much is because calcium deficiency is the leading cause of death in captive gliders. You will see that items like figs, grapefruit, oranges, papaya and raspberries all have more calcium than phosphorus. These fruits should be favored in the diet. Some fruits are
neutral, or close to neutral, in that they have similar amounts of calcium to phosphorus. These can also be fed frequently. They include things like cherries, grapes, mango, pear, pineapple, plums and strawberries. Some
fruits and vegetables are highly "inverse" in that they have a lot more phosphorus than they do calcium. This makes them less desirable nutritionally. A good example of this is sweet corn. Sugar gliders love it but it has calcium and phosphorus in a 1:40 ratio. It can still be fed
but in small amounts and infrequently. The same is true of nuts and seeds. You will also notice that meat products and eggs are highly inverse. So are insects..."

...and she goes on to explain why she prefers feeding dry cat food as her protein source over crickets/mealworms/meat due to its balance in nutrients including calcium/phosphorus.

I notice you said how the phosphorous levels: calcium levels in meat are highly inverse. That brings to mind something I read on human osteoperosis that new studies show that vegetarians have lower instances of osteoperosis. Reason being becasue meat depletes calcium levels due to this ratio which is why people who eat a lot of meat (ie americans since we consume the most amounts of meat per person in the WORLD) have higher instances of osteoperosis, and those who eat lots of meat end up w/ osteoperosis more, and must supplement the calcium.

It would be interesting to see some study of this sorts in glider diets as to the ratio of certain foods in relation to vitamin and mineral levels in the body of the glider.

(I am not suggesting you make your glider a vegetarian for thos of you who are wondering) I will try to find a link to that study if I can..but I did find it interesting!

Hmmm... Wow. Once again - interesting!

Here's a link to an interesting report on the amino acid breakdown of various pollens from Australian plants/trees
Pollen analysis
The common names are listed and towards the end the scientifc names are listed.
One tree, Eucalyptus Bridgesiana aka the Apple Box, is a tree, according to Marsupial Nutrition, that gliders frequent in the wild. They also frequent various species of Banksia and Acacia which are also represented.
It goes into some pretty deep detail, anyways, it's kind of interesting. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/littleglider.gif" alt="" />

Mikey, I have tried to use terms that the average glider owner can understand. By 'usable protein' I am simply stating that since the human diet requires eight amino acids that is the usable protein. A dog's diet requires twelve of the twenty amino acids so in theory a dog could starve to death eating a diet that would sustain a human. So if a human or animal eats a protein source that has an abundance of protein they will only utilze the portion that their body requires. For instance if we eat a protein source that contains twelve amino acids and only utilize eight of them the 'usable protein' is 66 2/3%. It is true, as far as I know, there has been no study on the amino acid requirements for a sugar gliders diet. So as you guys are assuming that a glider needs things like chitin and pollen in the diet I am assuming they need the extra amino acids in eggs.

Some researchers will tell you that chitin is a valuable food source for sugar gliders. Others will tell you that chitin is of little value because it is not properly digested by the gliders system. And there have been cases of captive gliders getting pieces of chitin between the teeth and gums and causing lumpy jaw. As well as cases of gliders getting choked on chitin.

Guess I looked at my chart wrong. Meal worms are 20.27% protein and 12.72% fat. Since the diets call for gut loaded meal worms my question would be are the gliders benefiting from the meal worms or the gut load?

Since some of you are so adamant about the intensive studies that have been made on gliders diets in the wild there should be a complete dietary breakdown on the daily requirements for gliders. As I am not privy to all of this information I would appreciate it if you could give me an unbiased food pyramid for sugar gliders.

If you will look at the nutritional analysis of the various protein sources you will find that eggs have the widest range of amino acids and nutrients of any. Maybe sugar gliders do not need them all but if you include eggs in the glider diet you have covered all bases. Hope that helps clear your confusion.
Charlie H

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Since some of you are so adamant about the intensive studies that have been made on gliders diets in the wild there should be a complete dietary breakdown on the daily requirements for gliders. As I am not privy to all of this information I would appreciate it if you could give me an unbiased food pyramid for sugar gliders.

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From the book Marsupial Nutrition, there are figures that detail the water intake needs, the Basal Metabolic Rates, the Field Metabolic Rates, and also the maintenance nitrogen requirements. All of these can be translated into their protein requirements and calorie requirements to live, but.... it is all expressed in figures that are foreign to me. Charlie, you should really check the book out, I guarantee you that you would be pretty satisified with some of the information in there. Some of it is just a bit technical. I'll have to dig it out and maybe post some of the statistics for you to look at and maybe you can get something out of them. As far as a food pyramid is concerned, I'm sure that one could be drawn up, but in all honesty I don't even remember how a human one works, lol.

Also, I know that eggs are a great and broad source of amino acids, but certain pollens, and pollen in general, is often described as being natures most complete source of amino acids. In lab testing with mice, it sustained breeding populations and the mice thrived when fed a diet of nothing but pollen. In the book it also mentions gliders from a certain region having a preference for pollen even over insects during their period of abundance. How they consume the pollen I'm not sure, I'd assume they'd get it by foraging flowers and as a side bonus when consuming nectar.

The book also has charts for gliders from a couple different regions that breakdown observed feeding time by time spent at certain food sources.

If you want Charlie, I will mail you my copy of the book so you can check it out. I think that you would enjoy it and I trust that you would return it. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/thumb.gif" alt="" />

Thats really interesting. Where can I get that book?

Amazon.com has it in used and new.
Marsupial Nutrition was printed by Cambridge Press and authored by Ian Hume.
It's about $40 for the book. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />