The New Additions

Yesterday.we picked up our gliders. We really wanted two females, but ended up with a brother and sister. The first 24 hours has been rather interesting and eventful. We had a long trip (several hours) from the breeder.. We had prepared by bringing a travel cage, some water, and apple, a pouch - preparing for most eventualities. We figured they would probably sleep most of the way home, since that was their normal sleep time. They were in a small cage on a table while we were at the breeder, and I was able to put my hand in it and let them explore and get used to it. They were used to being around people, so they reacted pretty well, all things considered. They probably weren't too happy to be roused from their sleep to be introduced to us, though. When it was time to go and their sleep pouch was put back into the cage, the male immediately headed for it and curled up inside. His sister had to be coaxed into it. Once in their own pouch, we put it and them in a larger bonding pouch that M had made.

We settled on names during the ride home, although we already had a pretty good idea. The brother is "CB", and the sister is Foehn (pronounced Fane). "CB", or more correctly "Cb" is the abbreviation for a thunderstorm cloud. A foehn is a warm wind, often known as a "snoweater".

The ride home was interesting. One of the gliders was periodically crabbing - never really settled down to sleep the entire trip. It was also lunging and trying to bite at times, obviously a little stressed out. M placed a piece of apple in the pouch and the crabbing glider enjoyed that. Most of they way home we both had opinions as to whether it was CB or Foehn that was making all of the noise. My feeling was that it was Foehn since she had been reluctant to go back into the pouch to begin with. M thought it was CB, since it seemed more like a guy thing. We had a lot of fun going back and forth about who was making all the noise. Once we got home we found it was Foehn - her brother slept like a baby the whole trip home. It's a guy thing.

Once home we placed them in their cage. We hung two pouches in the cage and had some fleece blankets on the bottom, but we left their "stinky" sleep pouch in there as well since that was what they were used to. For the first hour or so they were all over the cage, still a little stressed out in their new environment. However, they had settled down quite a bit by the time we were ready to turn in and were eating and drinking. They seemed to be getting used to their new home.

About 1:00 a.m. I woke up and heard a steady but quiet barking. I realized it was one of the gliders and went out to investigate. It was CB. Everything appeared OK, and as far as we know, he didn't bark again. M was disappointed that I didn't wake her up to hear it.

The real surprise is when I came out on the morning to leave for work. I noticed that one of the pouches that we had hung in the cage was bulging. Sure enough, they both had settled down in one of our pouches and not their old pouch on the cage floor (no way to hang it)!

They spent the afternoon with M in a bonding pouch and stayed very calm most of the time. Foehn stills crabs at times, while CB is pretty laid back (he does like his sleep!). I was wearing the pouch tonight when we had a little excitement. They woke up and Foehn decided to jump out of the pouch (it wasn't zippered at the time) and explore. Not good. I was trying to zip the pouch so CB wouldn't get the same idea but he wasn't about to miss out on the fun. So, on our first night we are trying to corral two exploring gliders. Thankfully we were able to round them up and put them in their cage. No more unzipped pouch when it's close to wake-up time!