Watching the Calendar

It will be about a week or two before we know if we have it figured out. What, you ask? Well, we have three female sugar gliders, and they go into heat about every 28 days. We really hadn't paid too much attention until all of them were together. We never noticed any particular behavior with Cirrus and Virga when they were living on their own, nor with Foehn. Now that they have been together for two months, we think we have pinpointed the telltale sign - barking.

In the first two days after the pairs became a quad, Virga started barking. We thought this was related to the change in living arrangements, but now that two months have passed our perspective has changed. Two weeks ago Cirrus exhibited the same barking behavior, and a week ago Foehn did.  Now, this is not really a problem for us. We are asleep most of the time they are awake, and the barking is pretty low key. However, I think it's getting to be somewhat of a problem for CB. At the same time as the barking is occurring, CB becomes the object of their attention, and I don't think the poor guy knows what to make of it all. He is neutered and doesn't really have any interest. The ladies groom him and nuzzle him and sometimes try to mount him (yes, strange but true).  When they are all in the pouch there is a lot of "tsking" going on (tsk is the sort of hiss sound they make when annoyed). Sometimes he seems to look at us as if to say "Do I really have to go through this?" He does go sleep in a separate pouch if he has had enough, but that isn't typical. Fortunately the extra attention lasts only a day or two. He still is a pretty laid back glider, and since they all really do like being together he puts up with it most of the time.