Suggies At Home

Hi everyone, real sorry that I have not updated for such  long tme. It’s all due to my project in September…. I entered Culinaire Malaysia 2011, under Nonya Heritage catogery with a team and after gruelling days and nights of practice and work, we made it and won silver. Hahaha… oh well, that kinda explains why I have not been updating anything lately. My assignments have also made a pile on my desk so that would be another thing to tackle.

Anyway, I have loads of articles to share soon. Oh, and if you are an avid reader of Petster magazine, do get hold of October’s issue, I wrote on Sugar Glider sickness and diseases.

I will also be having a sales page soon as I have some sugar glider pouches and bags to sell. Stay tuned Folks!

Thank you guys for the support you all have given me throughout these 6 years. I was once a newbie that didn’t know anything about gliders but through the years I have learnt a lot about sugar gliders and about breeding them.

Many have given me calls, emails and SMSes, wanting sugar glider joeys. Just a gentle reminder, I’m not a commercial breeder so my joeys are limited. For now, all joeys are fully booked till end of the year. Will most likely, but I cannot promise this, most likely will have a few joeys in January or February. If you would like to get a joey from me, you have to be patient and understand my terms and conditions. Respect my T & C and I will respect you.

Anyway, big thanks to all my friends and customers for believing in me. You guys are the best.

Recently a suggie group in facebook had members that started to want to get a slow loris as a pet. They said it looks cute, furry, with big round eyes and moves so slow that it appears comical and adorable.

Humans, we just love to take any animal as a pet huh? I like all sorts of animals, I onced worked at Sunway Interactive Wildlife Zoo and had the chance of introducing the slow loris to people. Yes, indeed they are very cute but we must understand, not all animals can be taken as pets. The slow loris is a protected animal, it requires a license under Perhilitan in Malaysia. Anyone caught with a slow loris without a license can be fined up to RM200,000 or even jailed for a short period.

Do they make good pets? No…. a BIG no…. I have heard about slow lorises biting their owners, and the bite is not something like a glider. It is very painful, 10 times more painful than a glider. To me, a slow loris is not an exotic pet, to me, it is more of a wild animal which belongs in the wild or the zoo. Some may say, sugar gliders are also wild and belong in the wild…. yes, that may be true but sugar gliders have been in the pet trade for more than 20 years, already there are products, food source and even books writted about sugar gliders as pets. There are none on slow lorises as pets.

Don’t believe that they are a protected species? Check this out …. Slow Loris in the news

Facts about the slow loris:

• They are nocturnal
• Omnivores with their diet mainly on insects and snails besides fruits.
• They mark their territory with urine. Believe me, it is super stinky as I had to work near slow lorises when I was at the zoo.
• They have venom glands at their elbows. It won’t kill you but give you an extremely painful bite. Yes, some people practice pulling its teeth out but that is just plain cruelty. Would you like me to pull out all your teeth but your molars so you can at least still chew some food? No rite?
• They are an endangered species.
• They have strong arms that can move at lightning speed if they need to catch their prey but they generally move slowly most of the time.
• They can live for 20 years. Are you sure you can give that kind of commitment when you can’t even commit to a glider for 10 years?

It’s just sad to see that people these days do not think about the concequences of getting wild animals as pets. I like snakes, but I settled for a corn snake instead of a cobra coz a cobra could kill me. It’s also a snake but I rather be safe then get killed by one. So stick to safe pets. Sugar gliders are safe to keep in Malaysia, does not require any permits or special licenses yet and they are fairly easy to keep if you have done your research. Let Wild animals, especially endangered ones like the slow loris stay wild.

Just a quick shout out, Suggies At Home is now on Facebook.

Do visit the page and “LIKE” us. Share your rants, thoughts and opinions on sugar gliders.

Suggies At Home Facebook

Wow, I just checked my site stats today and I’m totally shocked by the number of views on Saturday, 2 July 2011. Almost 700 views in 1 day!!!!! Well, for those of you who are curious, it is because local television program, Majalah 3 did an interview on some sugar glider owners.

I watched the segment and I’m pretty angry and disappointed at how Majalah 3 did the interview. There was no information about proper sugar glider nutrition or care. It was poorly managed. I’m saying this from my point of view because I do not want people to get sucked into obtaining sugar gliders cause it is cute. Yes, the whole tv interview was basically focusing on how cute, portable and adorable the sugar glider is, never highlighting about health issues, diet issues. I think I even heard someone say keeping sugar gliders is easy. Anyway, people said that the TV station cut and minus out all the proper information. Well, TV is TV, they wanna just attract the crowd, never caring about what would happen after the program is aired.

Wanna know what happened? Sugar glider demand and sales sky rocketed. So many recently bought underaged joeys and are now crying in forums and groups about how to care for their joeys. I too was getting the effect. I got many SMS and emails about people wanting joeys from me. I can tell from their short messages that they are just getting on impulse, all thanks to Majalah 3.

It’s fine if you want to popularize the hobby, but my number one aim whenever I do interviews is to firstly make sure that people understand that keeping sugar gliders is demanding, not easy and veterinary care is hard to come by, especially for people not in KL. Share with your friends about the complications that sugar gliders can get, share with people the diet and nutrition, share about the common mistakes people do and what sickness sugar gliders get. That should be the number one aim with media interviews. I do know some are trying to get a little 15 minutes of fame to gain popularity and to boost their business.

I remembered getting interviewed by The Star newspaper, I mentioned that I’m a breeder but I do not openly sell suggies. I try to educate people, this is why I started this blog. All my experience, my learnings everything that I know about sugar gliders go into this blog. I rarely advertise my joeys for sale. You won’t see me in Mudah.my or Adpost.com or online classifieds. If you do, is mainly to have my blog address posted so more people can read and learn about keeping sugar gliders.