Weegie was a three year old, large (actually fat), very playful and active glider and up until last night, he was a very active little boy. He ran all over the cage, jumped and got along well with his female companion, Phoebe, yet they never had joeys after almost 3 years of being together. I have
a 5ft tall cage with a rope ladder and hammock and they have a wood house they cuddle in.
     They ate primarily, veggies, yogurt mixed with baby cereal and Glideraide, and fruit and treats of nuts and a few nut sweets every few days. I also give them chicken, turkey, and every once in a while, red meat. Actually, they only eat red meat maybe once a month....but they do get more yogurt than twice a week. Most of the diet is veggies though...and of course the Glideraide, baby cereal, baby food fruit. I also give them Monkey biscuit and insectivore fare diet with the veggies. ..the Ledbeaters had lots of honey in it and I thought that might have caused the weight problem...but the female also eats the same diet, and the other male glider...and they are not fat, not like he was.
     Weegie was absolutely fine two nights ago. Active and very playful.But he did exercise a lot and he hadn't shown any signs of the hind leg paralysis... Last night, my husband went in to check on them and noticed Weeg laying under the water bottle and not trying to move or get out of the cage, like he usually did. I came in and picked him up and noticed he had problems moving his legs. He crawled into his napsack and we called the vet immediately. She suspected a calcium deficiency from the way we described his problems with movement....but somehow I suspected it might be worse so I held him and slowly, he became more listless and by 1:00 a.m. we called the vet emergency line back to try to get an appointment that night, but before we got a call back, Weeg died in my hands.
     I don't know what could have taken him this quickly and I'm concerned for my other two gliders, especially the female who lived with him in his cage.
     My husband did spray cockroach spray a few night ago around the corner of the room because we noticed a few had come into the room from who knows where (we live in Florida)....if he somehow caught and ate a roach that was affected by the poison, would that have killed him?

     The vet did an autopsy the following morning..actually it was only 1/2 a day after he died, and said that all his organs, muscles, and bones were in excellent condition, despite the fact that he was overweight. His stomach and intestines were examined and there was no sign of poisoning (we were concerned about the roach spray which we told also him about) and there was no sign of virus. Our vet knows what we feed our gliders and said that the diet did not cause his death.

     There was fluid in the stomach cavity and he seemed to die from this...pleuracy. Fluid from the abdominal cavity caused pressure on his lungs and he stopped breathing...perhaps the pressure stopped his heart. The vet said it was easy to misdiagnose it as calcium deficiency...weekening of hind leg movement which eventually led to no movement. I guess his body was not getting enough oxygen and it was shutting itself down...we couldn't see that was happening until it was too late.There was also past or present signs of abdominal adhesions (possible infection past or present). The vet sent the fluid in to the lab for further analysis.

     We still don't REALLY know what caused the death. Perhaps Weegie and Phoebe were horsing around, like they usually did, and she might have pushed him off the house (she often did that) and maybe he landed wrong...I don't know. I wish I did.

Please email me if you know of any other gliders that have died under the same symptoms as Weegie.