Togetherness

It's been very interesting to observe the behavior of our sugar gliders since the "merge" in late July. As I have mentioned before, Virga and Cirrus really came out of their shells and have really endeared themselves to us, especially to M. Cirrus waits up every morning for M to come in and give her a yogurt treat (and she is about the only one who does stay up), and comes to the side of the tent when M comes over and calls to her. Virga no longer crabs or bites, and will readily climb on to my hand or arm.  All four gliders are getting along well. As for sleeping arrangements, they have been all settling down in a large pouch the M made for them with only an occasional exception.  Once in  while one glider may sleep in one of the other two pouches we leave hanging in the cage, both a one or two glider pouch. About a week ago, however, all four of them decided they wanted to cram themselves into the smallest pouch in the cage. We thought it was only temporary, maybe a night or two, but just about every night since they pile in to sleep. Surprisingly, there is little hissing and fussing considering it's hard to distinguish bodies when you look in the pouch.

The large "fourplex" is on the left, the smaller pouch on the right. The large pouch is 9 inches wide.

This is what four of them in the small pouch looks like. Lots of arms, tails, and fur.

They are having a good time playing together as well. This week I have been setting up a wheel in the tent for a change of pace. Typically one or two of them will get in the wheel, and sometimes a third will hang on the outside for a ride. The other night, however, all four gliders were in the wheel at the same time and they kept at it for a good ten minutes. It almost made me dizzy just watching them, and even Cirrus seemed a little wobbly when she got off. Unfortunately I did not have the camera with me to document this first. However, last night three of them did hop in the wheel, and I was ready with the camera. A video would have been neat, but the photo will do.  The wheel was spinning at the time, and you can see two of them aren't going in the same direction! I think the one running is CB, with Cirrus and Foehn along for the ride.

CB (running), Foehn, and Cirrus in the wheel