Sugar Glider HPW Diet - High
Protein Wombaroo Recipe
In my opinion, the HPW diet (short for High Protein Wombaroo
diet) is the easiest diet to make and most closely mimics what
sugar gliders eat in the wild. Here is the HPW Recipe we use to
make the food for our sugar gliders.
HPW Recipe
Ingredients
2 cups warm water
1.5 cups honey
3 scrambled eggs
1/4 cup High Protein Wombaroo Powder (if
you have a breeding pair with a nursing or lactating
female, increase the amount of HPW Powder to 1/2 cup for
the female's HPW Diet)
Cook eggs, set aside. (Easy microwaving instructions
below.)
In large bowl mix water and honey. Stir until honey is
dissolved.
Add in HPW powder, mix well.
In a blender add in eggs, bee pollen and 1/2 to 1 cup HPW
liquid mixture. Blend for two minutes.
Add in additional liquid and blend for another two minutes.
Pour into a freezer safe bowl with an airtight lid. Keep in
freezer. HPW will freeze to consistency of ice cream.
Feed in the evening close to the time your gliders wake
up. Remove the food in the morning, so your gliders don't
try to snack on the leftovers during the day (you don't
want them eating fruits and vegetables that have been
sitting out all night).
You can cook the eggs in the microwave - it's faster
and less cleanup. Just make sure to use a tall plastic cup
and mix the eggs up really well. Microwave for 30 second
intervals, stirring in between, until they're done.
The final HPW Diet mixture will be runny and a bit
foamy at the top. This is normal.
If you have two gliders, double the recipe to 1 TBSP
HPW, 2 TBSP fruits, & 2 TBSP veggies.
The calcium:phosphorous ratio of HPW is 1.29:1. Try to
select fruits and vegetables that will keep the overall
ratio of the complete diet at 1.5-2:1. For HPW Diet made
easy, check out the SSG Complete HPW Diet.
This will show you examples of which fruits and veggies
yield a good ca:ph ratio for sugar gliders, when
combined.
If using frozen fruits and vegetables, I recommend
thawing them in the microwave, cutting them up into small
pieces, then mixing the HPW mixture in with them. The HPW
will thaw quickly when you mix it in. HPW mixture does NOT
need to be microwaved.
Australian bee pollen is different from American bee
pollen. I recommend Australian bee pollen as this is what
the sugar gliders eat in the wild, but many feed American
and their gliders do well with it.
If you are doubling the amount of HPW powder for a
nursing female, it is ok to have the other cage-mates
eating the same batch with the increased amount of
powder.
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.
High Protein Wombaroo Diet is one of the approved sugar
glider diets designed to be fed as a main course.
HPW is designed to be a complete diet (when following
the feeding instructions above. 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.
*NOTE: The amount of bee pollen was
previously published incorrectly on all of the websites.
The correct amount of bee pollen is 1 TBSP, not 2 TBSP.
We made this update to our website on 08/12/2009.
Sugar Glider HPW Diet - High
Protein Wombaroo Recipe