One night I noticed that Patrick was beginning to favor one of his back legs. Actually it was only a foot
that appeared to be a little weak. I had thought at first that perhaps he had injured it while boinking
around in his cage. Then when I went into my room I found Slater favoring one hind leg. I told Slater
that I didn't like the way that he was favoring that leg but upon examination he did not seem to be in
any pain with it.
The next morning Patrick was still a little weak with that one foot but Slater was dragging one hind leg
and favoring the other. I called the vet and made an appt. for 10 AM that morning. By the time that I
got them into the vets office Slater was dragging both hind legs. He was going down fast.
They both received injections of calcium. One milligram per kilogram of body weight. Patrick remained
unchanged. They also received an injection of steroids because of the stress on their bodys from the
HLP.
I brought them home and began giving them calcium gluconate 1cc in 300cc's of nectar. They began to
recover. Patrick was back to normal in just a couple of days. Slater was another story.
Slater began to use his back legs just a bit. He would grip the wire of his cage with his hind feet but did
not use his hind legs for propelling himself around his cage. Since he seemed to be getting around his
cage so much better I quit giving him the nectar and put the calcium into his water bottle.
The next day Slater was back to dragging his hind legs again. Evidently he did not get around well
enough to drink enough of his calcium enriched water.
I took him back to the vets for another injection of the calcium and steroids.
I continued to give him the calcium gluconate in nectar, in a crock dish sitting on a shelf in his cage next
to his nest box. His mate Celeste was very protective over him, trying to hide him from me when I
wanted to take him from his cage to check on him. She was so cute at this.
I had had both gliders on a diet of the accu-feed and since it is nutritionally complete and they were
eating it well I could not understand why they both got HLP and none of my other gliders were
affected. Patrick and Slater are brothers from different litters and they were in separate cages and in
separate rooms.
I sent in a sample of the accu-feed to have it analyzed for calcium content. It should have had 1%
calcium. The results came back as it having 1.57% calcium so it wasn't a lack of calcium in the
accu-feed.
If you have also read Sasha's story then you should know that Sasha is a sister to Patrick and Slater.
What we have discovered is that this genetic line of gliders that I have, all from wild caught parents,
metabolize their calcium differently from the rest of the gliders and therefore require more calcium than
the rest of my gliders.
I am happy to report that after three weeks of intensive treatment with the calcium gluconate Slater too
finally made a full recovery. This genetic line of gliders now receives calcium gluconate in some nectar
once a week as a dietary supplement.