# Sugar gliders & rabbits



## Dragonrain (Aug 31, 2010)

Wasn't quite sure where to put this, since it's more of a sugar glider question than it is about rabbits. Sorry if it's in the wrong place.

I worked with sugar gliders for 4 years before I moved to NJ. I use to live in MA, where gliders are illegal to keep as pets (I worked with them as educational animals). I fell in love with them at work, and have wanted a pair of my own ever since.

I've been thinking a lot about adding a pair of them to our family sometime in the future. It probably won't be for awhile still, but I've been doing a lot of research and am starting to plan out where I would keep their cage and stuff like that. I'd like to start buying supplies a little at a time, even though it very well may be a year or more before I actually get any gliders. I asked online on a sugar glider forum before about having both gliders and rabbits. One person told me that I shouldn't keep them in the same room, preferably not on the same floor of the house, as my rabbits. She said that it's because rabbits can carry Pasteurella and that it can be passed on, and be deadly to, sugar gliders.
But I did a case study on Pasteurella in college and learned that other carriers for it commonly include dogs and cats. And yet I see pictures of people who let their sugar gliders interact with their cats and dogs, or at least let them hang out in the same room.
I originally wanted to keep my glider cage in the same room that my rabbits are mainly housed in, or in our bedroom - which is the room right next to the bunny room. If that's a problem, I can keep the gliders in a different room, but we live in an apartment so I can't keep them on a different floor.
Does anyone have both sugar gliders and rabbits? Have you ever had any problems keeping both? How far apart do you keep them or how do you otherwise prevent disease transmission between the two species. If I keep them in a different room with no access to each other, do I still have to worry about carrying germs between the two species on my hands or clothing?
I really want this to work out. But I don't want to make any decisions, based on what I want, that will make any of my pets - new or old - suffer. 

Thanks in advance for any replies!


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## akane (Aug 31, 2010)

5 gliders, 5 rabbits, 2 dogs, 2 cats, 4 parakeets, chickens, guinea fowl... we did have hamsters, gerbils, and quail. With pretty much all of them having shared a room with the gliders at some time. The incubators and brooders for the poultry are in the room the sugar gliders got moved to so we could build them a big 8x4x8' enclosure.

Haven't seen a single illness transfer between species. I worry the most about the parakeets getting something from the poultry since mites and cocci are common in chickens and they are both birds. So long as cages are kept clean and the animals don't directly interact I don't see a problem. Anything that a healthy animal carries is probably just as bad as all the random germs that survive in the environment. We all have immune systems for a reason. Provided you or the animal is healthy and not overwhelmed by another sick animal or dirty conditions fighting off the common stuff is not a problem.

When I have an unhealthy animal like the mite outbreaks with the poultry or a new animal who's health is unknown then I keep them in a separate room. Along with washing hands and changing clothes between handling them or even their cage and the other animals. Plus new or sick animals should have a specific set of feeders, water bottles, etc... that the other animals do not use without proper sterilization in between.


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## Dragonrain (Sep 2, 2010)

Thanks for replying! 

Yeah everyone here is healthy and happy and I'm pretty strict about sticking to my cleaning regime. 

We live in a decent size apartment, it's just me and my fiance and our pets here, and we live in a 3 bedroom apartment, so we have plenty of space to keep anyone who gets sick in a separate room away form all the other animals.

I got some other encouraging advice from other members on a sugar glider forum so I'm not as worried about this anymore. It'll still be awhile longer before I get any gliders, but it's fun to start to think about it now and I'm going to slowly start buying everything I'd need for them.


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