GliderCENTRAL

colony breeding?

Posted By: Anonymous

colony breeding? - 01/30/11 09:21 AM

I know a lot of people on the site have claimed colony breeding to be impossible.
I sort of wanted to touch base on the subject.
I am not condoning it because i am told it is very difficult cause sugar gliders are often canabals.
You see my aunt has had a breeding colony for several years now,
she has 8 females caged with a single male.
They live in a large cage of corse, its taller than me & just about as wide.
To prevent canibalization, she tracks their breeding cycle
& places a divier in the cage that gives the female some privacy from the others days before the joey comes out.
From their she stays in the divided area until the joey is about about the size of a grape.
Then she lets the female go back into the big portion to raise her joey(s).
She does this so she can be aware of any canabalizations that occur & prevent early canabalization.
Using this method she claims to have only lost two joeys in the 6 years she has had her suggies.
I was wondering if anyone else has experienced success with colony breeding?
Posted By: JillMarie

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 09:52 AM

ooh good question.

While I have no experience in this matter, I do think that diet and cage size, as well as personalities of the individual gliders, has a direct influence on whether this will work, or not.
Posted By: Gizmogirl

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 09:54 AM

Trios in itself is hard enough to breed, many members on here breed trios successfully, others not. Colony breeding would be done with much larger numbers, say 2 males and 10 or more females.

I have read that colony breeding may not produce as many babies as for example pairs, because the babies are in a much less protected scenario. Competition for territory is violent by nature and not many survive the first months of independent life. Your aunt puts a lot of work into this obviously, and I commend her for doing so. This is certainly not something I am up for, it's in a league of it's own. In captivity, we have more control and can take measures to ensure safety and survival. In the wild the dominant male will usually mate more frequently with the females of the group than other males, and for this reason you will not need more than two males in such a colony.

With pairs or trios it is much easier to keep track of the lineage etc.
Posted By: queenduck

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 01:40 PM

Well more power to her. She's obviously a better breeder than I am. I HATE trios. I've tried several times and I have horrible outcomes. Just broke up a trio of sisters. Uggg. So many people love them but me... not so much. LOL. I can't even imagine a colony or why anyone would want to breed a colony. I do know a colony of neutered males/females is great fun, but a breeding one? No way, I'd never try it.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 01:48 PM

I have a trio myself & luckly things have went well(:
But I grew up thinking that her cage was the norm,
because her gliders were the first I saw, lol.
She says she did it cause she didn't want them to be seperated since they live in big groups in the wild.

Posted By: suggiemom1980

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 03:28 PM

I have one breeding trio right now and thought long and hard before I decided to try it. All three are within six days OOP of each other, have great COI's and have been together since they were 12 weeks OOP. They get along great right now and have from the start. Intros were incredibly easy, with one climbing out of its bonding pouch, straight into the bonding pouch of the other/s and all snuggling right together. Now that I see Alicia hates trios, I'm even more scared, because she's been doing the breeding thing for way longer than I ever thought of and has apparently experienced what I fear.

I have had to break up two non-breeding trios due to extreme food aggression. No matter what I did, the aggressor wouldn't stop. One was so food aggressive, she lost weight because she was too busy chasing the others from the food, to eat any of it herself! These were F-F-M trios.

In watching the dynamics of my one trio, I believe the youngest female is the dominant one. This worries me because I'm afraid she'd pull any joeys from the other female. I do check them several times a day for joey bumps and listen for any problems. If one single joey is pulled or cannibalized, that's it. I'm neutering the male. I won't need to break them up, cause I'm just a small time hobby breeder. It doesn't matter if they have joeys or not. I'd rather they were happy and not breed, than have problems and stress out.

While the idea of a colony breeding like that is interesting, losing just one joey to cannibalization would break my heart. I'm so paranoid, I'd never be able to relax and enjoy them!
Posted By: Jessica

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 03:37 PM

I have a breeding trio now, and I am lucky I have had no problems at all! They are all sweet.for instance yesterday I took a few pics of the new joeys that just came oop on the 26th, when Ii put them back in all of them started cleaning my sent off..it scared me at first but everything was ok.

I guess sometimes it works sometimes it does not. I have read many bad stories about trios and many good ones.

I am getting another trio this comming thursday and I am prepaired incase they do not work out, but I hope they do!

I also read the more in a colony the more issues that can arise so it is best not to.
Posted By: suggiemom1980

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 03:54 PM

I rescued a F-F-F-M quad three years ago. The one female had a joey IP. They got along great, until the day the joey came OOP. I heard a horrible noise, ran to the cage and found mom hanging to the ceiling of the cube pouch, baby clinging to her, dad laying back, watching and the other two females staring intently at the joey. I didn't take any chances and immediately put the two females in a cage together and kept the cages close enough they could still see and smell, but not touch. I knew in my heart, had I not done that, they would have injured/killed the joey.

I'm hoping and praying for a successful breeding trio with mine!
Posted By: Jessica

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 03:59 PM

I wish you luck! Thank god you got the mom and babie out, by the sound of it the baby would have not made it! Im glad you got them out.

I think putting them together before they start breed it one factor. I know that there has been subjects on here about the breeding age, and males and females should not be put together until they are "breeding" age, but I think its best to put them together a few months before that they they can bond to you as well as bond to each other.
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 05:27 PM

Yea, as far as I know females definetly need to grow up together.
Posted By: Dancing

Re: colony breeding? - 01/30/11 08:30 PM

My current situation is...

I have a breeding trio that is successful. They also have one of their older neutered son's living with them.

They have three joeys right now. The single male is 7 1/2 weeks oop and the twin girls are 6 1/2 weeks oop. They (all 7) are doing great together.

The two adult females are twin sisters and all three of the adults are very laid back gliders. Very non agressive.

My other colony, my "Bouncy Babies" just had dad neutered in November. This colony is incredible. It consist of Mom, Dad and 6 of their children. (there were 9 joeys in total from this pair, three of them now live with a new mom) All boys were neutered as soon as they were old enough and each have helped take care of their younger siblings. Again, this is an awesome and unusual colony.

But in the past, I have had even non breeding (retired breeding) family colonies get along for years together and then all of a sudden just blow up resulting in three different cages for this colony.

A very large cage is necessary for colonies, breeding or otherwise.


I would be interested to know, with your mom's colony, how many joeys do they produce a year? How often are there multiple joeys oop at the same time?
Posted By: Marsupial_Mayhem

Re: colony breeding? - 01/31/11 04:09 AM

I have more than one breeding trio. Only a couple over the years have been unsuccessful. All the ones I have now are very good colonies. Usually one female is behind the other in having joeys out of pouch, and she will stay behind with the male and play with the joeys and keep them warm while the mom goes out to get food and play.

It's not impossible. It's something that is totally natural to them in the wild.

Not all will work out, but most of mine have been excellent colonies.
Posted By: suggiemom1980

Re: colony breeding? - 01/31/11 04:15 AM

Originally Posted By: Marsupial_Mayhem
I have more than one breeding trio. Only a couple over the years have been unsuccessful. All the ones I have now are very good colonies. Usually one female is behind the other in having joeys out of pouch, and she will stay behind with the male and play with the joeys and keep them warm while the mom goes out to get food and play.

It's not impossible. It's something that is totally natural to them in the wild.

Not all will work out, but most of mine have been excellent colonies.

Thanks, Danielle! You've given me hope!
Posted By: Anonymous

Re: colony breeding? - 01/31/11 06:20 AM

I asked my aunty how many joeys she has per year w/ the colony.
She got roughly 30 joeys last year, wooow.
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