Can Sugar Gliders Eat Walnuts?
Whether you eat them on their own, add them to salads, or top off an ice cream sundae with them, walnuts are a delicious and crunchy treat to enjoy. Walnuts are also known to have lots of health benefits for humans.
If walnuts are healthy for us humans, it would make seem that they would be healthy for sugar gliders as well, right? The reality is that not food that is healthy for us is good for suggies too. As a good sugar glider parent, you don’t want to feed your wide-eyed pals anything that could cause them problems.
So, what about walnuts? Can sugar gliders eat walnuts? The quick and easy answer is: Yes, sugar gliders can eat walnuts. However, there are some things to avoid when treating your sugar gliders to walnuts. And like most treats, walnuts should be feed to sugar gliders in moderation.
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How Often Can I Feed My Sugar Gliders Walnuts?
Most sugar gliders will go crazy for walnuts, pecans, and to be honest, most types of nuts. This of course, makes walnuts an excellent way to spoil your furry friends. The downside is that walnuts have a very high fat content compared to what sugar gliders should have in their diets.
This means walnuts should be kept to an at most a once a week treat. And as part of a rotation of less fatty but just as tasty treats such as blueberries.
You don’t want your sugar gliders getting fat. Sugar gliders can have negative healthy consequences both from being overweight and from losing excess weight too quickly. It’s obviously better to avoid letting them become overweight in the first place.
If you have the rare sugar glider that doesn’t like walnuts, don’t worry. Disliking one new food isn’t, by itself, a sign your sugar glider is sick or otherwise in distress. Some sugar gliders also need to be exposed to a new food more than once before deciding to give it a try.
Most sugar glider owners try to keep their sweeties eating a diet that contains a calcium to phosphorus ratio of 2:1. Walnuts have a ratio of about .1:1 which means you’ll need to find a high calcium food to offset the walnuts if you plan to feed them to your suggies regularly.
How to Prepare Walnuts for Sugar Gliders to Eat
When it comes to feeding walnuts to sugar gliders, raw walnuts are the best. Also be sure you offer a walnut treat to your sugar glider with the shell completely removed. Just as you wouldn’t eat the shell, your sugar gliders shouldn’t either.
Secondly, be sure to only serve unsalted walnuts. In the wild sugar gliders are able to get all the salt they need from their various food sources. In captivity a sugar glider’s regular diet should reflect this. So added salt isn’t healthy for your suggies.
Finally, be sure the raw walnut has not gone rancid. Ideally, a sugar glider would reject a rancid walnut, but that might not always be the case. Generally you can tell if your walnuts have gone rancid by the smell. Try to store your walnuts in a cool dry place to keep them from going bad.
Summary: Can Sugar Gliders Have Walnuts?
Can sugar gliders eat walnuts? In a word: Yes! Sugar gliders can eat walnuts. Because of how high the fat content of walnuts is, suggies should be treated to them part of nutritious and varied diet. Only serve raw unsalted walnuts to your little buddies.
Remember to keep an eye on your sugar glider’s calcium to phosphorus ratio. And to store walnuts properly to avoid giving your furry friend a rancid one.