Understanding the Link Between Diet and Cage Odor for Sugar Gliders

Owning sugar glider has been for me a truly delightful experience, but one common challenge many owners face is cage odor. Surprisingly, your glider’s diet plays a huge role in how fresh (or funky) their home smells. In this post, we’ll explore how diet impacts odor, why the LGRS diet might be your best bet, and offer practical tips to help you keep your glider’s space clean and pleasant.

The Diet-Odor Connection

Sugar gliders are nocturnal marsupials with specific dietary needs. Feeding them an unbalanced diet, especially one high in protein, such as insects or meat can lead to stronger-smelling urine and feces. In fact, improper diets may even cause your glider to develop a musky, ferret-like smell.

According to the Long Island Exotic Pet Vet - Sugar Glider Care Guide, too much protein, sugar, or even vitamin overdoses can cause more intense waste odors. In contrast, a well-balanced diet (think 75% pellet food, 25% fresh produce, with calcium supplements every other day) supports proper nutrition without the stinky side effects.

As noted, improper diets may even give your glider a musky, ferret-like smell. Ensuring proper calcium-to-phosphorus ratios is a major step toward odor control.

Here’s where things get tricky: sugar gliders do need protein, and they need a high-protein diet to thrive—but not too much in relation to the other components of their diet.

Overly pungent cage odors in my experience track back to a dietary imbalance, not any one ingredient… Many well-meaning owners struggle to feed a balanced diet using only raw ingredients like insects, fruits, vegetables, and powdered supplements. It takes careful analysis and planning to get the proportions right consistently. The most common reason, it seems to me, is that feeding a sugar gliders diet and achieving the correct proportions of each aspect of that diet from “raw” ingredients alone (e.g. insects, fruits, vegetables, and supplements) requires a lot more careful analysis of what you are feeding and how often. 

In my own journey, I found that it's easier and more effective to feed something that's already been nutritionally balanced, especially for the protein portion of the diet. There are a few options to me that come to mind. The diet that I have experience with and have come to trust myself is LGRS Suggie Soup.

There are a few reasons for this trust. First, it has been around for a long time and has a proven track record. I started using the diet for my gliders around 2010 and noticed a change in my sugar gliders coat, the general smell of the gliders throughout spot cleaning and weekly cage cleanings, and the overall appearance of my gliders. I am not alone in my praise for the diet as nearly all of the sugar glider forums online are filled with it going back well over a decade.

Second, is the formulations 2.21:1 Calcium-to-Phosphorus Ratio. Calcium and phosphorus work together to support strong bones, nerve function, and muscle health—but they need to be in balance. For sugar gliders, a 2:1 calcium-to-phosphorus (Ca:Ph) ratio is ideal. The LGRS diet hits this sweet spot with a 2.21:1 ratio, making it especially beneficial for long-term health.

When phosphorus outweighs calcium in the diet, the body pulls calcium from the bones to compensate—leading to nutritional metabolic bone disease (MBD), a painful and sometimes fatal condition in gliders. By keeping the calcium slightly higher than phosphorus, the LGRS diet:

• Supports proper bone development and maintenance
• Prevents deficiencies that can weaken the skeletal system
• Reduces the risk of diet-related health issues that could contribute to odor and poor overall condition

This careful balance is one of the key reasons LGRS is trusted by rescue centers.

Third, I have come to appreciate how it can help avoid obesity in sugar gliders due to its flexibility in serving. With easy to change portions within the final product (fully mixed LGRS) gliders that are obese can be provided a well-balanced diet in smaller portions easily while losing weight and then monitored and provided a more correct portion for a healthy glider. Of course, all of these possibilities, as I said, are possible because of LGRS flexibly in serving.  Something that I think is important, especially when you consider that LGRS Suggie Soup was originally developed for underweight rescues. Across the board and over the years it has developed a track record of being healthy enough to manage many of the health issues that the sugar glider community has seen arise.

Fourth, I am in control of the ingredients in all portions of the diet. From the core ingredients to the fresh Mango, fresh Papaya, calcium & Vitamin D fortified Orange Juice, filtered Honey, Plain, Low—Fat Yogurt, to the hard boiled eggs I have the choice to use quality ingredients and pick organic over non-organic options wherever possible. That is just something I like when it comes to caring for anything I love.

It was around 2013 when we first started sourcing and selling the dried portion of LGRS for others folk’s sugar gliders, and then as now we would source the same ingredients for our own gliders as we would for our customers.  

Fifth, the fact that (we will be listing and selling our LGRS mix shortly) you can buy a premixed, quality product that can be used to create a total diet plan for your gliders that also has a proven track record is often invaluable. The choices of what quality, if they are organic or not, and if they are fresh that you feed for the remaining ingredients of the recipe is entirely up to you. Overall, LGRS makes feed a well-balanced sugar glider diet, simple.  

Like I said, we prefer organic and make a product that contains as many organic ingredients as we can source. Fly pupae can be hard to source organically due to their ability to fly, but at one time we even built our own fly bins to raise and harvest these guys and used a solar dehydrator to dry them for future use. Now, that is probably way over kill for what most people would do, but it was fun and the gliders got a healthy protein source out of it.       

Key Considerations Before Switching to LGRS

Before jumping in, keep these important tips in mind:

• Consult a Vet
  Share the recipe with your exotic vet to confirm it fits your glider’s unique needs.
• Pair It Up
  Suggie Soup alone isn’t complete. Balance it with fruits, veggies, and protein sources.
• Watch Out for Oxalates
  Avoid high-oxalate veggies (like spinach) that can bind calcium and block nutrient absorption.
• Portion Smartly
  Healthy gliders may only need 1.5 tbsp of soup instead of the full 2 tbsp. Monitor you gliders weight and feed based on that.
• Freeze for Freshness
  Freeze in batches, and thaw only what’s needed for 2–3 days.
• Do not use raw, comb, or unfiltered honey
  Look for the word “filtered” or “pasteurized” on the label.

 

Beyond Diet: More Ways to Control Odor

Diet is only one piece of the puzzle. Here are some bonus tips to help keep things fresh:

• Daily Clean-Up: Change food/water daily and empty the drop tray every other day.
• Weekly Deep Clean: Wash fleece pouches, wheels, and toys.
• Avoid Over-Cleaning: Removing all scents may cause your glider to mark territory more aggressively.
• Air Circulation: Keep the cage in a well-ventilated area, and consider a small HEPA air purifier nearby.

Managing sugar glider odors doesn't have to be a never-ending battle. By feeding a balanced, odor-conscious diet like the LGRS Suggie Soup and following smart hygiene practices, you can keep your glider healthy and their home smelling sweet.

We started selling sugar glider cage sets and supplies around 2009 and since then for most of those years (other than post covid-19) we have lived and breathed everything sugar gliders, treating this business as our life and blood. We have rescued, care for, and owned a few gliders over the years and with that came an understanding that a good diet is absolutely critical for their health and happiness. I think back to one of our adopted gliders who was blind from malnutrition when we took him in. Simon was a sweet heart, and while he got along fine with proper care, it was such a needless thing for him to have to go through. These are exotic animals and do take some level of knowledge to correctly care for. It our belief that LGRS makes this simple enough that it wouldn’t have happened to Simon if someone would have known.

This was a long post, but an important one. Check back for updates and for the re-release of our LGRS Suggie Soup premix. Thanks for reading. Glide on!  

Have questions about glider care, diet tweaks, or other tips? Drop a comment below or check out more guides right here on GliderAmazing.com!