{"topic_id":"exotic_nutrition_sugar_glider","category":"exotic-pet-nutrition","context":"---\ntopic_id: exotic_nutrition_sugar_glider\ncategory: exotic-pet-nutrition\ntitle: \"Sugar glider nutrition — nectar, insects, and calcium balance\"\nlang: en\nsource: \"Merck Veterinary Manual — Sugar glider nutrition — nectar, insects, and calcium balance\"\nsource_file: pdf-raw/exotic-health/mvm_sugarglider_disease.txt\ndate_parsed: 2026-07-28\ntokens_estimated: 0\nverified: true\nverification: c1_substring\nsource_document: \"Merck Veterinary Manual (professional veterinary reference)\"\ncitation:\n  authority: \"Merck Veterinary Manual\"\n  title: \"Sugar glider nutrition — nectar, insects, and calcium balance\"\n  url: \"https://www.merckvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals\"\n  retrieved: \"2026-07-28\"\n  ref: \"\"\n  doc_type: \"professional veterinary reference\"\n  needs_review: false\n---\n\n# Sugar glider nutrition — nectar, insects, and calcium balance\nVerbatim first-hand facts from Merck Veterinary Manual (professional veterinary reference). All bullets are exact substrings of the cited source and C1-substring verified. Numeric nutrient values are NOT asserted (NRC 2006 quantitative data unavailable).\n## Nutritional facts\n- Although sugar gliders are hindgut fermenters, broad-spectrum antimicrobial treatment is well tolerated, probably because diets fed in captivity can be digested without fermentation.\n- Nutritional Osteodystrophy in Sugar Gliders Pet sugar gliders maintained on a mainly fruit diet containing few gut-loaded insects or other protein sources are very susceptible to nutritional osteodystrophy (nutritional secondary hyperparathyroidism).\n- This condition results from an imbalance in dietary calcium, phosphorus, and vitamin D and manifests clinically as posterior paresis progressing to hindlimb paralysis, muscle tremors, pathological bone fractures, and, in some advanced cases, seizures.\n","sources":["exotic-pet-nutrition — Sugar glider nutrition — nectar, insects, and calcium balance (retrieved 2026-07-28)"],"source":{"authority":"exotic-pet-nutrition","title":"Sugar glider nutrition — nectar, insects, and calcium balance","url":"https://www.merckvetmanual.com/exotic-and-laboratory-animals","retrieved":"2026-07-28","ref":"","doc_type":"official PDF","source_document":"Merck Veterinary Manual (professional veterinary reference)","verification_file":"pdf-raw/exotic-health/mvm_sugarglider_disease.txt"},"source_document":"Merck Veterinary Manual (professional veterinary reference)","source_file":"pdf-raw/exotic-health/mvm_sugarglider_disease.txt","tokens_estimated":276,"generated_at":null,"tip":"Use /api/v1/topics to discover more topics. /api/v1/nutrient for precise single-point queries. /api/v1/cross_compare for 2-3 standard comparisons."}