How to Clean a Sugar Glider Cage

Info:

Sugar gliders can be very messy animals not only from dropping food to the bottom of their cages but from regular body waste and marking their scents on the cage. These smells can build up over time and will require some attention from you to clean the sugar gliders cage.

If you own a sugar glider it is your responsibility to make sure the cage is clean not only will this keep your house smelling better it will help maintain the health of your little sugar glider.

Things you will need:

Vinegar

Water

Spray Bottle

Fleece 

Step 1

To clean a sugar gliders cage you should first determine how often you will need to clean the cage. Sugar gliders mark the cage with their scents as a way of showing territorial areas for the animals. If you were to go in and clean the complete cage the natural instinct for the sugar glider would be to mark the cage full of their scent and claim the new unclaimed territory.

With that in mind I suggest cleaning the cage in sections. I divide my cage into four equal parts and clean one part every week with a good deep down clean and clean the rest with a spot clean. You may be able to divide this up a little more if you only have girl sugar gliders which tend to mark less than males that are neutered, however if you have an unneutered male you will find that cleaning the cage more often is the best bet. Also if you have several sugar gliders sharing the same area you will find that is needs cleaned more often than just having two sugar gliders.

Step 2

 After you have determined when you will clean your sugar gliders cage you will need to make a cleaning solution. I suggest using equal parts of vinegar and water in a spray bottle. This solution is non toxic and works great to deodorize and clean the mess left behind by those cute little sugar gliders. This is the best cleaning solution if you are trusting a kid or someone that gets a little careless to clean the cage. Both water and vinegar are safe for the sugar glider to eat so if there is residue left on the cage you don't have to worry about it harming your sugar glider.

For times when you need to deep clean the sugar glider cage you can use water and bleach solution but you must use extreme caution because this could be deadly to your sugar gliders if not cleaned off completely. Just take a water bottle and fill it most of the way full with water. Add a small amount of bleach to the water. Go over the cage with your bleach solution and make sure the cage is thoroughly cleaned. Next you will need to rinse the cage making sure all the bleach solution is completely removed from the cage.

Once the cage is rinsed (and rinsed again just for safe measure) you will need to place the cage in direct sunlight for several hours to allow any remaining bleach to decompose. I would only do this type of deep cleaning if the cage was allowed to get really dirty or if your sugar gliders have been sick, possible as a spring cleaning when there was ample time to do a really good cleaning but I can not stress enough the importance of making sure the bleach is completely removed before you put your sugar gliders back into the cage.

Step 3

No matter how you clean your sugar glider cage you will need to make sure to clean the drip pan each and every time you clean the cage. Some require cleaning more often if your sugar glider is extremely messy or if you have several in the cage but usually once a week for a couple of sugar gliders if fine so long as the smell does not get to bad.

A drip pan should be a little larger than the outside dimensions of the cage to work best since the gliders can manage to get food and droppings out the sides of the cage as well as the bottom. Many people like to fill the drip pan with wood shavings to help absorb the smell and make cleaning the drip pan much easier. This is not required however if you do not have something on the drip pan it will reduce of eliminate the amount of scrubbing you have to do to clean the mess. If you decide to use wood chips you should avoid cedar, pine and aspen wood shavings as these have been known to be harmful to sugar gliders.

I have used a piece of thick plastic and just threw it away when I cleaned so I didn't have to worry about the wood harming my sugar gliders but found this was pretty expensive after a while and the plastic just collected the waste and it looked horrible. I am currently using a piece of fleece to line the bottom of the sugar glider cage. It will absorb the smell and mess left by the sugar gliders and after a quick spin in the washer I can reuse it just like brand new.

I have also heard of people using regular newspaper to coat the drip pan but was concerned that the smell of the ink would cause the sugar gliders to become sick so I didn't want to try it.

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