This is my first sugar glider so I'm sure I'm doing something wrong here. I got this suggie from my best friend, who purchased him about 9 months ago. He was about a month or 2 along at that point so this little guy is around 10-12 months. My best friend was not too successful on the bonding process as this suggie seemed to resist most attempts to be friendly with him. He didn't bite or crab excessively except for a few times but he honestly seemed like he wanted to be left alone.
Well, in June, she gave me the sugar glider as a birthday present since she felt that she was making no progress. I managed to get the glider to play on me a few times when I took him out. He was still pretty anti-social, however, and prone to biting, even when I wasn't being threatening. The straight hand trick doesn't seem to work because he'll go after whatever loose flesh there is. He doesn't seem to want to come out of his cage, play on me, or do anything except eat and curl up in his pouch.
Now, he does have a relatively small cage. My best friend never picked up a big cage so his is pretty tiny but it is over a foot high, so he does get some exercise. He has strings and some toys in his cage so he shouldn't be completely bored. In addition, I feed him dry glider chow pellets (which he loves), water, and green apples. Even when he takes food from my hand, he will still treat me with disdain. As I said before, there is no crabbing, really, just lots of biting and ignoring me. In addition, he doesn't seem to enjoy leaving his tiny cage.
So, what can I do here? I love this little guy and I do plan on getting him a bigger cage but he doesn't even seem to trust me anymore and the biting is getting frustrating for me because he really digs his teeth into me. I've gotten a few deep bites that drew blood thus far. Every now and then he will calm down and hang out with me but it's so rare now that I feel like doing so may be pointless.
Please help me. I don't want to have to get rid of the little suggie.