Suggies At Home

A number of times people have asked me this question:

How do you bath sugar gliders?

Er…. first of all, most animals do not require baths with shampoos and conditioners. Only humans use shampoos and conditioners and soap and we would “naturally” think that all animals that we keep as pets should have a bath too.

Well, it is a big No for sugar gliders. Why? First of all these creatures have thick fur, almost chinchilla like. It is already conditioned properly by the glider with natural oils. The fur is thick and dense, so it is very difficult to dry if it gets washed with soap and water. It is easier to dry if the fur is only wet with water but if soap or shampoo comes in, the chemicals and cleaning agent in it will strip off the natural oils, causing the fur to soak up water. It is very difficult to dry. But then why not dry off using a hair dryer? NO NO NO NO…. No hair dryers please, the heat actually can burn off the ears. Sugar gliders have very delicate skin and very thin ear leather, so heat can burn them and cause pain and lots of damage.

Gliders also can easily drown if you were to put them in a basin of water. So no way….. no water baths please.

So how to bath a sugar glider? A glider is actually quite a clean animal. It cleans itself like how a cat does. It uses it’s grooming claws, licks them and comb themselves with it. For a newbie, it looks like the glider is scratching itself crazy but it really is just grooming itself.

If your glider is a little grubby or dirty, just use a plain old damn cloth or some baby wet wipes to wipe your glider. Use only fragrance free baby wet wipes that are alcohol free. Also, do not get those “pet shampoo sprays”. I recently heard that many suppliers are selling these together with the joeys but these pet shampoo sprays are not meant for gliders. Loaded with chemicals and perfume, a glider is super sensitive to these perfume oils. Also a lot are just water base, so it will cause your glider to become wet and catch a cold and fall sick later on. Stay away from such products. If you need to get a bit of dirt off or clean the fur a little, you can use baby powder or pet powder made with corn starch. Talcum powder is bad for their lungs so only use corn starch.

A glider should only ever get a wet bath if it fell into paint or gotten oil onto it’s body or smeared life threatening chemicals on itself. This should be done with proper vet supervision.