Boys Will Be Boys

You know those movies where the big burley guy gets overprotective of his girl when another guy just attempts to talk to her? "Hey boy...who do you think you are talkin' to??" Well it wouldn't be a stretch to put Taz in a little tiny "wife-beater" give him some little fake cans of Coors and recreate that scene sugar glider style. (It's Jay's idea for the costume, not mine!) The other night we decided to put all three gliders in the tent together to see how they'd react to actually being able to interact, not just see each other through cage bars.

We had reasons for concern. Males, even if both our neutered like Bruce and Taz, can be very territorial, especially if a female is involved. Testosterone is the same across the animal world! Both of our boys techincally have lower levels now, but they still have working boy parts and get typical boy urges. Sydney is Taz's mate and he is very fond of her.

Sydney ran up to Bruce right away and they both started sniffing and grooming each other, an awesome sign that they will get along fine. Taz however, wasn't as happy to have another boy in the room checking out his girl. He waddled ('cause Taz can't run or swagger yet!) over to Bruce, gave him a sniff and started crabbing. Down they went into a little mini glider brawl. Jay pulled them apart quickly and Bruce sat on Jay's leg. Sydney came back over again to say hi and Taz was right behind, still not happy. This cycle continued a few times. We did have a couple of moments when they were all sniffing and Bruce and Taz were not fighting, but they were short lived.

Despite the first attempt not going perfectly, we are pretty sure we can get all three of them to the point that they will play together at least with our supervision. We aren't sure we'll ever be able to have them cagemates, but it's our hope. We are on the lookout currently for another female about the age of Bruce to give him his very own mate. That might make him and Taz be a little more friendly of each other and not look at the other as a rival. Tonight we are going to try tent time with all three again. Maybe I can actually get a few more pictures and even a video.