This is the story of my Gizmo. you can see my original posts on the Glider Central board. This story is to warn people don't get your sugargliders if your not sure what your going to feed them when you get them.
     Basically what I ended up feeding them was the unmodified version of Leadbeatters, with fruits and vegetables, The diet they had been living off of at the pet shop and breeder before that was birdseed and fruit.
     One night I was putting Gizmo and Smokey in their cage. After taking a drink of water Gizmo just kind of collapsed in the corner, when I went to see what was wrong she crabbed and started moving, only she was dragging her back legs. I immediately went to the board at Glider Central and posted. I ended up on the phone with Bourbon, who told me their correct diet and also what I could feed them now that would help them, that would get some calcium into them. To just get them through the night. It took a couple of minutes but my mom finally took me down to Wawa(which really was sweet of her because she has night blindness and therefore hates to drive at night) to get some oranges and yogurt.
     In the morning we took her to the vet where she weighed in at 51 grams that visit and Smokey weighed 44 grams the last visit which was only a couple of days ago. Which was normal since they were about 4 months OOP. The vet said she couldn't pee on her own, and gave her a shot of cortizone. The vet thought it was an injury. I continued to give them both oranges (neither of them would eat the yogurt).
     I took them back to the vet the next morning for fluid shots for the both of them(they had become dehydrated when I moved them to an aquarium-like bucket because I didn't want Gizmo to hurt herself further and for Smokey to get an initial injury it wasn't till I found an old water bottle hanger I had bought originally for my gerbils, the kind you can put into an aquarium and still use a regular water bottle that they became totally rehydrated) and X-rays and a calcium shot for Gizmo. When
we went back there later we found out that she had no broken bones, which had
actually given me a lot of hope for her.
     In a few days she regained the ability to pee on her own. About a week after that she went back to the vet for another calcium and cortizone shot for her, then she weighed 47 grams.
     About another week after that I noticed slimy sludge-like stuff around her tail. I called the vet but the doctor that saw her wasn't in that day but he would be in tomorrow. I couldn't find another vet within driving distance that I knew my mom would drive to. I called the vet the next day and made an appointment for the day after that day (I wasn't able to call until later in the afternoon that's why I couldn't get her to the vet till the next day).
     When we went to the vet the next day my Smokey weighed 54 grams, but my
little Gizmo only weighed in at 39 grams. The vet gave her a shot of baytril on the off chance that she just had diarrhea instead of putting her to sleep then. But he said that most likely that her body was starting to shut down, but that we could give her the weekend and see how she was and to bring her in on Monday (which is today as I write this 10/30/2000) with Smokey who was going to be neutered.
     I spent as much of the weekend with her as I could. I don't have any regrets about that weekend. On Saturday I took her with me everywhere. I was even able to get a hold of some Polaroid and get a couple of pictures of her which made me happy to at least have a picture of her.
     Even though her tail had dried up some at that point, you could see her eyes
said it was time to go. On Sunday at around quarter to 4 we were going to BJ's (I'm not sure if there are any other BJ's anywhere in case there isn't it's a wholesale club, we went there to get candy for the trick-or-treaters because here they come on the 30th)
     I took them with me when I went to take my hand out of their pouch to put my coat on Gizmo pulled my hand back I just couldn't take my hand out after that and didn't till we got back to the car from BJ's. When we finally got back out to the car I took her out of the pouch, when I took her out of the pouch I found she had died. But as far as I know she died warm, comfortable, and happy, The big thing for me was I was with her.
     I feel bad for Smokey he's very lonely. The first time I opened the pouch to see if he was okay he looked up at me then put his head back down after a couple of seconds he looked up again then after a couple of seconds he put his head back down. he did this 10 or 11 time he kept expecting me to put Gizmo in there with him. He spent the whole night trying to get out of his cage so he could look for her. He's just been neutered, and I'm now in the process of looking for another cage mate for him.
     I guess by telling this story I hope to warn everybody that it isn't okay to wait to put your glider on the right diet. Make sure you know what your going to feed your glider when your going to get them. I've learned the hard way how important diet is.