I drove down to Albuquerque on Saturday and picked up the travel kennel from the Continental Air Cargo terminal. It was a larger container than I was expecting, about 24x16x6 inches. During the car ride back to Los Alamos, I popped the top open and took a peak inside. The gliders were sound asleep in their pouch which was laying on a bed of wood chips. A couple wedges of apple had been left inside for them to much on but they didn't appear to have eaten any of it. I put in a fresh apple wedge because the others were a bit brown.
The gliders were so small. Much smaller than Matt & Sarah's glider. They were all curled up around each other in the corner of the pouch, sleeping soundly. I left them alone for the remainder of the trip, with just the occasional peek inside. At some point a bump in the road woke them up and they started crabbing. Even though I've heard it before, the sound is so odd that for a moment I thought something was broken in the car.
When I got them home I hung the pouch up at the bottom of the cage, put some cantelope and honeydew near them and a water bottle. I also left food and water up at the top of the cage to encourage them to start eating up there. Then I left them alone and went to see a movie.
When I returned the gliders were out and starting to explore their spacious cage. I hadn't gotten to the point of being able to distinguish them by their markings yet, but there were definitely two distinct personalities. One of them moved around very fast, ate a lot, and was very crabby if I came near it. The other moved slow, had low ears and a sort of depressed look, and spent most of its time hiding under the exercise wheel.
The spazzy one is Soleil; the depressed one is Noid.
I stayed up most of the night watching them explore their environment and get more comfortable with the toys. They seemed to have a hard time figuring out proper operation of the exercise wheel. But I don't care, if they want to crawl in the bottom hole, up onto the axle, and out the top hole only to have the wheel then spin down and throw them into the floor, that's fine with me. Soleil seems to enjoy it.
In the morning, while they were asleep, I took the pouch they were in and tried to wear it around, but they were constantly crabbing and seemed very unhappy about the whole ordeal, so I took them back upstairs and put them in the cage. I let them smell my hand from inside the pouch a little. I tried to lift one out of the pouch and it jumped from my hand to my opposite arm, at which point it left two very large poops on my forearm and then proceeded to pee all over my shirt. Then, in a move of surprising bravery and ignorance, it jumped for the wall and fell to the ground. I had to chase it around the room for awhile before I got ahold of it and put it back in the cage. In the process of being removed from the pouch, it had apparently peed all over the other one and soiled the pouch. So I emptied them both into a new pouch and removed the nasty one to the laundry. One new shirt later, I was leaving them alone for the remainder of their sleep.
Sunday night they seemed a lot more confident in their cage. Noid wasn't quite so skittish and did a bit more exploring herself. They didn't like the yogurt or the applesauce, so I'm not sure they got enough food. Soleil also figured out the exercise wheel. I think she put about 10 miles onto that thing. It was constantly going for about an hour. At one point the two gliders got into the wheel and went to sleep curled up on top of each other. It was exceedingly cute.
I also let them wander around the outside of the cage a bit. At one point Soleil jumped from the cage to my shirt, though immediately upon landing she crabbed at me for a little bit. They still crab any time I put my hands near them, and they run away from me when they can. But I feel like they are getting more confident and perhaps a bit more trusting.
They are so cute.
