Diet Study Isses

My gliders LOVE figs - they will even eat dried figs like they have never been offered such wonderfulness before in life.

Crap. Now I wanna plant a fig tree.

Dried figs?? Really? I went to the farmers market and accidentally got two containers of dried figs instead of fresh (I know what fresh look like, I just had a brainfart) but ended up throwing them away because I thought the preservative used in drying would hurt them. I'd have eaten them but yuck!

Now Im gonna have to try some figs

I think that the zoos used the cereal because that's just what they do. They feed the most economical things possible and cereals are very popularly fed at zoos. Gliders fit into the animals that get nectar, too, and lory nectar often has a significant cereal component.

The wombaroo powder has cereal - grains do have food value and they are part of lots of animal diets. . . .

Of course this is speculation on my part that comes from the olden days when I hung out in the dungeons of the Fort Worth zoo picking the brains of all the keepers of animals I was very interested in.

Well wake up and smell the coffee Anita. I just checked the ingredients in Wambaroo and it sure does have "ground cereal" in it; listed right behind the protien powders. Hmmm, I wonder why? Maybe as a filler? And it has dextrose in it which is sugar. hmmm. Interesting.

Ok, so a lot of glider foods have cereal aka grains in them. But I still wonder why? Is it because that is a filler. Or is there a nutritional component? I would like to think that most companies and zoos put what is good for the animals in their food but I know that is not always the case. I know somtimes it is about economics and somtimes it is about convenience and sometimes it is about cheap ingredients like sugar that improve flavor.


Around my house, dog food is known as crackers. Because that is what it is. Meat flavored crackers.

Gliders consume nectar when they can - and honeydew and sap, too, which also have sugars in them (honeydew is "processed" but sugary, too). Zoos typically feed a nectar mix like gliderade or lory nectar and lory nectars often contain cereal, too.

Grains (like regular or steel cut oatmeal) contribute to nutrition even tho they are not exactly the seeds/pods that gliders might pick off of trees like acacia or the gums. My gliders love acacia blossoms/berries, eucalyptus blossoms, roses, rose hips. I've never noticed that they eat the euc berries, but they do pick them off the branches and carry them to their pouch. I don't really pay attention. . .

I think it was Ian Hume who suggested that gliders can perhaps "recycle" their protein because as their cecum holds the food , ir adds significant bacteria for digestion, rather than just pushing it through.

Perhaps the carbos in whole grains feed the digestive bacteria.

Complex saccharides are one of the main components of the gums that gliders eat, Sugars are the primary carbos in the flower nectar and in fruits in season so I can see why zoos feed sugar nectar mixes.

One of the things zoos do is to feed as many species the same foods as possible so that they can limit their food purchases. If the lories, gliders, other possums, hummers, bats, and other nectar feeders all consume a similar (or even better, the same) nectar, it really helps the kitchen and the purchasing department.
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jungleflockmom wrote:

My gliders love acacia blossoms/berries, eucalyptus blossoms, roses, rose hips. I've never noticed that they eat the euc berries, but they do pick them off the branches and carry them to their pouch.

My gliders LOVE Hibiscus flowers from my back yard...Dee, where do you get these berries/blommoms? Locally or shipped?

Off of trees in the neighborhood or by the beach. You have citrus blossoms when in bloom - they'll love those, too.

I'm so jealous. I don't even have a single tree. Gonna have to change that this spring.