We glider owners are obsessed with making sure that our babies are living in clean, safe homes. We go crazy scrubbing down the bars and washing the toys in bleach.
But is it possible that by cleaning so much we are actually making our gliders more susceptible to illness? Keep reading to find out.
My whole family came down with Covid, so little paranoid me spent a long time researching illness and what can and cannot pass between humans and gliders. In that time, I stumbled upon a thread that talked about how our obsession with cleaning could actually be breaking down the immune systems of our gliders.
When we bleach the toys and keep the cages spotless, when we shut off our gliders from the human world and lock them away every time someone coughs, we’re not letting them build up immunity like they naturally would.
Take a human for example. If we locked them away in a spotless bubble for years, they would be healthy for the time because they were never exposed to anything that could hurt them. But if that bubble gets popped, then that human will become incredibly ill. A common cold could be life-threatening to them because they’ve never been exposed to any illness before and their bodies have no way to combat it.
It’s the same with gliders.
Am I saying that we should let them live in pits or that we should purposely put them around sick people or expose them to things that could be dangerous to them?
Not at all.
I believe that cages should be cleaned regularly. It is not fair to the gliders to have to roll around in their own urine and poop because they aren’t able to clean the cages themselves. If you just leave the cage to become filthy, you aren’t a good owner. This will lead to all sorts of illnesses in gliders – especially UTI’s.
However, we don’t need to go crazy with cleaning. We don’t need to use bleach in the cages or on the toys. Hot water and vinegar or soap work just fine and they don’t kill everything – both the good and the bad bacteria. By all means, keep the cages clean, but it’s okay if they aren’t in spotless homes 24/7. They would prefer it otherwise – they love their smells and aren’t pleased when you’re constantly wiping those away.
We also don’t need to panic when we get sick. Don’t go out of your way to expose the gliders to illness, but you don’t have to lock them away either. They’ll be stronger if they are exposed to illness in small amounts over long periods of time.
What we need to learn is balance. Balance between over-cleanliness and allowing the gliders to naturally build up immunity to the world around us. We must not kill all of the bacteria (not all of it is bad, guys) but we also don’t want them living in pig pens.
How do you find the balance between those extremes? Let’s chat in the comments.
~Hattush
Comments