Sugar Glider Baby
Sugar gliders are considered fully grown and can start reproducing at puberty when the females are 8-12 months old and the males 12-15 months old. In nature, sugar gliders breed once or twice per year during monsoon season as it is the warmest time of the year and more insects are readily available to eat.
In captivity, sugar gliders can breed throughout the year as the living conditions are consistent and safe, their partner is readily available, there is a reliable food supply, and always a comfortable temperature. A thriving female in an optimal captive environment overall will ultimately breed several times during a year. In captivity, the joeys can also leave their mother at a younger age as they are in a safe environment without any external threats. With this in mind, it is important to supervise young children and other house pets that might interact with your sugar glider.
In the wild, the biggest threat to sugar gliders, and especially their babies who are easy targets, are owls, that also are nocturnal. Some of their other natural predators include snakes, lizards, kookaburras, quolls and stray cats.
Keep in mind, if you put a male and female sugar glider together in a cage they will have babies. Unless you are prepared for this you should probably neuter your male sugar gliders. Spaying the females are considered too invasive of surgery for such a small animal and will do more harm than good and is advised against altogether.
The Pregnancy
The pregnancy, or gestation period, is about 16 days and the litter can consist of 1-4 joeys. But it has been noted that a female sometimes can hold an embryo for up to 11 months!! Most of the time (about 80%), the litter consists of 2 joeys, or 1 joey (about 19%). As sugar gliders are marsupials they are poorly developed at birth, furless and also extremely vulnerable. Their weight at birth is 0.2 g (0.0071 oz) and they are small as a grain of rice!! One of the advantages of the small litter size and tiny babies is that the pregnancy doesn’t affect the female’s physical ability much and she can continue gliding as usual during this time.
The Birth
The only sense that is developed at birth is their sense of smell so the mother usually licks the path the newborn joey needs to crawl to successfully find the safety of its pouch. Well in the pouch, the joey locates a nipple and attaches to it. This makes the nipple swell until the joey is securely latched on. The joey stays in its mother’s pouch while it develops and grows stronger for warmth, safety and around the clock nursing. The mother usually has 4 nipples but on rare occasions only 2. It is possible for a mother to have babies in different development stages in her pouch simultaneously. To our eyes it will look like the mother’s pouch is growing larger over the next few weeks.
After a couple of months you might see the joey’s hand or foot sticking out of the pouch and eventually a larger part of the joey hanging out too, but under no circumstances should you try to remove the joey from the pouch. You would probably end up seriously hurting both mother and joey physically, as the joey is attached to the mother nursing, while putting tremendous mental stress on them both at this early, critical stage. This could also lead to the completely unnecessary death of the joey.
The joeys start eating solid food provided by the parents when they are about 40-50 days old.
When the joey is about 70 days, the mother will start make a hissing sound and start to shake her hips to get the joey to detach from the nipple so she can start the regulate the nursing and so the joey can leave the pouch for a bit to get some exercise, start eating some solid foods provided by the parents and start exploring the outside world to some extent but will never go far. The joey still remains by its mother’s side and returns to the pouch frequently and can latch back on the nipple again on their own. The mother needs to constantly stay alert and be ready to escape the scene with her babies when needed to keep them safe. During the time the joey is out of the pouch, the father is also always right there for guidance and he keeps the joey warm.
When about 80 days old the joey’s eyes open and the world as they have known it up until then completely changes. They bond with their father at this point and can climb onto his back. This allows the mother some time on her own to feed and play. At this stage the sugar glider is on the same level as other animals at birth.
The father has a significant part in raising the joey and is very involved in all the different stages of development. It is recommended to keep the father close to the mother and joey after birth. Sugar glider parents can be very protective of their babies, also the father can become more aggressive and may no longer have the personality of your friendly pet that you are so familiar with. If they feel threatened, they can eat or abandon their babies so as a sugar glider owner it is important to accommodate and give the new family the respect, care and privacy they require.
At about the age of 110 days the sugar glider is weaned, can control its temperature hence no longer depends on its parents, and is ready to leave its nest. In captivity it may be necessary to remove the sugar glider at this point, who might now be conceived as a threat by his new peers, to prevent an attack. In the wild, female sugar gliders leave their colony before reaching puberty to avoid conflicts with the matriarch, which very likely is its mother.
