It is uncommon for Sugar Gliders to have triplets, most usually have 1 or 2 babies, so you can imagine my surprise when Hanna and Moki had 3 beautiful healthy babies.
During the second week in May, I was impatiently waiting for Hanna's babies to come out of the pouch, she had been eating lots of extra food and was huge and I was sure that must be about to come oop any day now!
She started to come out of their sleeping pouch less and less and was happy to be fed food by hand. One evening when neither her or Moki got up when everyone else was out playing or eating I peeked further into the pouch to see if the babies were out. Well I didn't see babies, but I did see body parts poking out of her pouch. I started to count and the results added up to more than 2 babies! 3 tails??? By the time Roger came in to the room to look, all the baby bits were poked back in out of sight.
The next day I looked and could clearly see that there were 3 babies in the pouch. I tried to take a picture, but due to her moving, and the angle I took it at, nothing showed. I didn't want to bother her too much either. All appeared to be of similar size.
For the next few days she would have them hanging out, but still attached to the nipple when she was in her sleeping pouch, but when she came out to eat they would all get stuffed back her pouch. It looked very uncomfortable and she didn't move around to much at all. She looked like a duck waddling around! (-: We gave her extra BML and would offer extra chicken or egg for Protein. She ate a little bit of the chicken or egg, but when she realized I would hand feed her extra mealworms, she preferred to go back to the sleeping pouch after eating her BML and picking through the veggies for the pieces of corn. Once she was back in the pouch I would rub her belly, while she laid back and munched on the mealworms. If I offered her anything but mealworms, she would stick her nose in the air in disgust, before burrowing down further into the sleeping pouch to sing to her babies.
Moki also began to come out of the sleeping pouch less and less. He is one of the best Dad's we have. He takes his baby sitting job seriously and even before the babies come out of the pouch, spends more time in the pouch gazing adoringly at Hanna! If only she could train him to bring her food up to the pouch it would be perfect. I think he knows he just has to look at me, and I will come bearing all his favorite food and treats.
On Friday May 19th in the afternoon I went in the Sugar Glider room and looked in on Moki and Hanna and all 3 babies were fully out of the pouch. We had two little boys and a girl. I started picking them up and Hanna shot out of the pouch past me, and ran round the cage like a crazy thing before doing a couple of laps on the wheel. As soon as I put her babies back, she went straight back to them and started singing. On the day they came out of the pouch they weighed 10 grams each.
The babies eyes opened a week and a half later. All 3 are about the same size and look really healthy. They are now 20 grams oop each.
Pictures below were taken 5/31/06
