Hi. I just recently purchased 2 male glider joeys around 9 weeks OOP.  

FIRST QUESTION: What live insects can I give my babies besides  
Crickets, grasshoppers, mealworms  

I was looking at roaches, rice flour beetles, wax worms, praying mantids, bean bettles and "fishing" worms (earth worms, etc).  feeder www.joshsfrogs.com/live-insects-feeders....xBoCbw8QAvD_BwE

Also do you think it would be okay to purchase the small clear shrimp they sale for fish tanks at pet stores to put into a small food bowl of water for them to fish out and eat.  

I have read that they eat small lizards and birds, along with frozen pinky mice. What sort of lizards can they be fed, anoles? Others? I feel as though giving them something live to chase and hunt would help mimic living in the wild.  

SECOND QUESTION: i am also looking for "live" plants, not artificial, that i can put into their cage. I did find a site that sales eucalyptus branches and leaves for them, ( eucalyptus www.eucproducts.com ) i know this is okay, but are there any other branches or leaves i can vary for them?  
Maybe some that they can suck nectar out of or are safe if chewed??  

Thank you in advance for any advice. Hope this can help others as well.

Whoa there!

The only bugs I feed are meal worms and very rarely. Captive gliders do not need all of those bugs and worms.

Stay away from any worm that lives in dirt, earth worms, night crawlers, red worms.....; those types of worms will carry anything toxic or not that they eat and will make your glider sick or kill them. The same goes for lizards, mice, birds.....


You need to find a good diet for your gliders, if you click on the word diet it will take you to the page with all of the glider diets listed.

I myself feed the Critterlove diets, which can be found at Critterlove

If you want to give your glider safe treats stick with meal worms that haven't been raised on corn based bedding, yogurt drops, a little yogurt on a spoon.

Food for thought:

Disclosure: What is stated below, I'm not trying to scare or discourage. It is completely my opinion, based on a lot of research. Not actual experience. To me, it's not worth the risk.


I have done a lot of research on this myself, and have come to the conclusion that feeding them foods that they may find in the wild is close to impossible. We can't duplicate nature.

First, there is environment. Gliders have a tendancy to seek out what their needs are depending on the season/climate, and what they need to survive. They choose from what is available. Since they live in the trees, anything that crawls around on or in the ground is not part of their normal diet. Having said that, they are animals of opportunity. And in the wild will eat what is available. Since what ever they eat in the wild will have been exposed to the same enviroment the gliders have, their "food" (of choice) won't have any "foreign" bacteria, parasites, or virus that the gliders haven't already been exposed to.

Having said that, when we experiment with insects, pinkies, and raw eggs, that have been provided for us by, lets say a pet store. Are their sources who provide these things reputable? Do these sources recomend their product to sugar gliders? Is the pet store handling them correctly? Insects in our own backyard can be hazardous too. You may not use pesticides, but does your neighbor? Small amounts are toxic. We may be setting them up to eat things that may harm them without even realizing it.

Planted pots of plants offer their own group of issues. In a natural environment, plants, flowers and trees have mother nature to help keep them clean and flushed of glider potty and poo. In a small controled environment, just the soil itself becomes a petri dish for bacterial growth.

I don't mean to discourage, but I will learn from others mistakes. The vets bills aren't worth it.

Good intentions for the gliders may not be a wise choice. While they are in captivity, they rely and depend on us to make good and healthy choices for them.

Oh, I forgot, you talked about hunting....

Have you ever taken a feather and played with your glider? We can replicate hunting and foraging with a bit of ingenuity and planning.

I hang clean natural feathers throughout the cage. Poke them in spots where the glider least expect it to be. Change location daily. I also have some plastic bugs I wedge bettween the bars for them to pull out.

Foraging is a wonderful way to give them enrichment too. You can hide their fruits and vegetables in small containers. Get some bamboo skewers and offer a chunk of apple, cucumbers, kale, melon, peas, green beans, etc and hang it or weave into the bars and watch them go after it.

I hide them in their toy pit, sit a piece on a hammock or in a favorite hideaway. I also do this to encourage exploration of a new toy.

Last week, I cut a small branch from my redbud (safe non pesticide wood) bush and skewered multiple fruits on the tiny off shoots. I used fruits from their salad. They loved it!