What is the norm for breeding colony sizes? Is having 6 or more suggies in one cage to many? I am not doing this nor do I plan I am just trying to get some info.

Thanks

With intact/breeding colonies, even trios can be tricky. I have heard of some that have breeding quads, but never heard of a breeding colony larger than that.

Are you saying one male and 5 females?

It really just depends on the gliders. I know of breeders that have large breeding groups with no problems. I personally have never had luck with another other than pairs.

Colonies are pretty tricky even if they are pets only. I would think 6 would have a pretty high unlikeliness of working. As said, even trios don't work out a lot.

The largest breeding "colony" I have ever heard of is one quad, but as the others have said this is quite rare. (I don't remember who had it either)

I personally will be attempting my first breeding trio once Eclipse & Stardust are old enough but I am also prepared just in case it doesn't work. I'd guess that with a trio I only have a 50/50 chance of success.... or less.

Each glider has their own personality so it creates so many factors to concider just to have a non-breeding colony... add hormones, joeys, and jealousy into the equation and it becomes increasingly difficult.

If someone had a colony of 1 male to 5 or 6 females. What would happen? Could the joeys lose ears or other body parts due to fighting and such? Thanks

Possibly..but more likely a "rival" female would kill the others' joeys.

It's a wild instinct, but it can be disastrous in captivity. Big colonies work in the wild because they are able to get away from other gliders if there is going to be trouble, but that just can't happen in a cage.

Usually the fighting has nothing to do with the male, it is the females and joeys. Females steal and/or kill other females joeys.

What I mean is some species, as long as you have a high female to male ratio (say 5 or 6 females to 1 male) your ok... but this is NOT the case with gliders.

I almost forgot, when I got my 1st glider. My breeder had told me he tried once... He had a colony of like 4 females. They all got along great, He added a male and still no problems. However once the females had joeys ip and oop, there were alot of problems.

I'd say if anyone wanted to try a colony to only try NONbreeding colonies.

Wouldn't females try and steal each other's babies? Also, how does the poor boy manage everyone?

I currently have a quad. One male and 3 females. The oldest female is the mother of the two younger females (no, they are not related to the male). The oldest female has one joey just came oop about 5 days ago and they are all doing wonderful.

That is Good to hear...... I guess all one can do (if they truly want to do the larger colony) - is to give it a try but always with a lot of supervision.