Original BML Diet - Bourbon's Modified Leadbeater's Recipe for Sugar Gliders

This Original Recipe for the BML Diet (Bourbon's Modified Leadbeater's Diet) is an alteration of the Leadbeater's Diet.

Original BML Diet Recipe

• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 egg (boiled or microwaved, no shell)
• 1/4 cup apple juice 

Blend well, turn off blender, add the following:

• One 4oz bottle premixed Gerber juice with mixed fruit yogurt (mixed fruit)
• 1 TEAspoon Rep-Cal Herpivite Vitamin Supplement (blue label)

Blend until smooth, turn off blender, add the following:

• 2 TEAspoons Rep-Cal Calcium Supplement Non-Phosphorous with Vitamin D3 in it (pink label)
• Two 2 1/2 oz. jars of Chicken baby food.
• 1/4 cup Wheat Germ
• 1/2 cup dry baby cereal (mixed or oatmeal)

Feeding Instructions

For one glider, feed 1 TABLEspoon Original BML mix, 1 TABLEspoon fruits, and 1 TABLEspoon vegetables nightly.

Use a frozen bag of mixed vegetables and a frozen bag of mixed fruits.

Extra Advice

• If freezing Original BML Diet mixture into ice cube trays, one cube should equal around 2 Tablespoons. You may want to test it out to make sure.
• You should be able to find the Gerber yogurt juice in the baby food aisle.  If you can not find it, you can substitute it with 1/4 cup plain yogurt and 1/4 cup mixed fruit juice.
• The baby food chicken does not have the most pleasant smell. The chicken will say either Chicken with Chicken Gravy or Chicken with Chicken Broth. Either one is fine. You can also substitute the chicken with the turkey baby food.
• DO NOT substitute the Rep-Cal Herpivite Vitamin Supplement with any other supplement.  These are the calcium and supplement that work with this diet:

• DO NOT feed the pits or seeds of apples, cherries, peaches, etc.
• Use fresh or frozen fruits and vegetables - NOT canned.
• Young joeys may eat more BML and less fruits & veggies. This is ok. You should continue to offer them every night.
• Do NOT offer Briskys with the BML. It is a diet plan within itself and could throw the balance off of both plans.
• Gliders are messy with their food. Try putting their food dish inside of a "glider kitchen". This can be a plastic (ferret) igloo on top of a plate or an upside-down plastic container with a hole in the side. This will help keep the mess and the cage smell down and make cleaning the cage MUCH easier.
• If you need to feed your gliders a few hours early, prepare the diet without thawing the fruits and vegetables.  It should be thawed out by the time they wake up. 
• A dry staple food is not required to supplement this diet, but can be used during the day in case your sugar gliders wake up and need a snack.
• Original BML Diet is one of the approved sugar glider diets designed to be fed as a main course.

If Your Sugar Gliders Do Not Eat Their BML

Have you heard of Judie's BML Recipe? It is a modified BML diet created by Judie Hausmann. Judie has been breeding healthy sugar gliders for a long time and is very well respected in the sugar glider community.  If you are feeding your gliders the Original BML Diet and they are not eating it very well, you may want to consider switching to Judie's BML.  This would be a small diet change and require minimal or no adjustment period for your gliders.

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