"When are we going to make babies?"

The title may leave you feeling a little...perplexed. However, I found it quite funny. Yesterday, out of the blue, Cliff said, "When are we going to make babies?" I just had to laugh because I knew to what he was referring, but it's a statement I never thought I would hear him utter.

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but Cliff and I recently adopted more sugar gliders to add to our little glider family. After losing Gadget and Mika, we really felt there was a hole in our lives that we wanted to fill with more suggies. But we both decided that we wanted it filled with the pitter patter of baby glider feet. So, we started looking for some unneutered boys for our family. At first, we were only going to get an intact male to mate with our Gizzy, but sometimes, things happen for a reason. We ended up adopting 2 intact males and 2 females. And they are really very sweet gliders. And we've since decided that Gizzy and Jack are too close a family to split them up, so we'll just mate one of the new males with one of the new females (most likely Ollie and Gabby). Here's a pic of the new boys. I wish I had one of the new girls to share, but they are quick (and apparently camera shy).

Ollie and Monty 

So, back to the matter at hand "When are we going to make babies?" I know it should be as easy as lighting some candles, putting on some Barry White and offering a romantic dinner of mealworms and BML, but I want to be prepared for this. After all, I need to know what to expect. We've sort of been through it before since Mika had joeys in her pouch when we got her, but she was almost at the end of her mommy-rearing stage, that we really didn't have to do too much to prepare for welcoming Gadget and Gizzy into the colony. So, I'm doing a little more research.

I'm really looking forward to having more baby gliders. It's really funny when the joeys start getting too big to fit in the mommy's pouch. When Mika was bursting at the seams with Gadget and Gizzy, she would start shoving their body parts back in her pouch. It really is strange (and awesome) to see legs and tails protruding from a mommy's belly.

This image from Suzsugargliders.com shows a couple of body parts sticking out of the pouch.

 

 

But once the babies start coming out into the cage, it is quite the spectacle. They don't normally venture far from their sleeping bag, but when they do, they ride on Mom's or Dad's back. It is so adorable. And I love the fact that daddy glider is so involved with rearing the offspring.

How sweet is this?

So, yes, I'm definitely ready to make babies...just not the human kind.