alright...in reguards to the idea of catching live prey, i have heard of a colony of gliders taking down a partridge when being housed in an aviary together, quite an accidental pairing, and the gliders even used the feathers to line their nests afterward. my gliders also seem to have attacked and eaten part of a wild snake that was unfortunate enough to slither through their cage last night...would it be a bad idea to get feeder birds? as heartless as that sounds, when i feed live animals to my gliders, like pinky mice or rats, i try to keep in mind that it's for nutrition and enrichment, and put the small animal's life out of my mind as much as i can. anyhow, in light of enrichment and my glider's happiness and entertainment, and all other thoughts of cruelty aside, if i went to the store and bought a small finch or something not so personable, and let it loose in my glider cage, would it be a bad idea? i could feed the bird for as long as it would take for them to catch it, and if they never did end up catching it, i suppose they'd just have a new cagemate. also, i could try this with small lizards...anoles, something cheap and disposable...ideas, anyone? or am i just a little too devoted to my fuzzbutts?
Hmmm... I'm not a very smart person on this subject... But i did want to add in on feeding live birds... Something i dont think i would have the heart to do...
But... Having worked in a large petstore chain and working with some of those smaller finches, i would deffinately hesitate to use them as feeder animals. Most of them come from breeder mills, and we all know the problems associated with those in any species. I saw several with many types of diseases, some treatable, some not. I would be very leary of what those diseases could do to a glider.
Not to mention that the cheapest finch in the local petstores here are $14... That would be a mighty expensive dinner... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />
When I was having trouble getting Smeagol to eat protien, I went to Donna Fritz (Darcy's diet inventor) for help. Amoung other things, she suggested I buy a finch and freeze it, then thaw and feed. She said she realized some may not have the heart, but when Darcy was really sick, this was how she kept him going. I never tried it as Smeagol eventually decided that waxies were worth eating, but there's your answer on the finches. As for the lizards, I dunno???
I think Leyna (correct me if I'm wrong) had a thread about feeding small herps to gliders not to long ago....there was a discussion about how likely it would be for them to contract salmonella...I don't know what the concensus on that was though...
Glide free 
Dimitri and Tegan 
