Chewed tail

Question
I have four gliders. Three girls and one boy. I had my first girl for over a year before I adopted her companion friend (second female) and then my mom adopted two (brother/ sister pair) in late November and they were 11 weeks old. Now I have my mom's pair as well and about two weeks ago, I introduced the new pair to my first girls. Everything was going well...the introductions went very smoothly and besides the typical bickers over the food bowl, I never noticed too much commotion. I did notice, however, that the sister of the brother sister pair had abandoned her brother to sleep with my first two girls. I felt bad for the boy, but when my first girl would check in on him by peeking her head in his pouch, he would just bark at her and she would back out.

I noticed this evening that his tail is RAW about a half inch down...there is no hair on his tail :(

I think he could be self mutilating but I am not sure as I have only heard of this and never experienced it. I am assuming he is sad because his sister has been leaving him but for the past 2 nights, he has slept in the pouch with the girls too so I definitely didn't expect this.

I separated him and his sister into a smaller cage in their original pouch and my first two girls are in their cage separate too. I would like for them all to bond together but I am not willing to risk a self mutilating glider .
Please let me know if I am on the right track with my thought pattern and if I am doing the right thing. I need help to be sure I am keeping them all safe.

Thank you.

Alyssa

Answer
Alyssa,

I answered this question already, but Allexperts says I didn't.  Maybe it didn't go through.

Anyway.....My first concern is that you have related males and females together.  This is not a good situation.  Inbreeding can cause still birth or abnormalities in the joeys.  You have several options to alleviate this problem.  You could put the male with one of the unrelated females.  You would then need two cages, one for the male and unrelated female (they will breed).  The other cage would have the sister and one of the other females.  Another option is to have the male neutered.  Then you could have all four together.  As it is, you have three females and one male.  The females are likely to gang up on the male, or the male might bond with one or two females and reject the other female(s).  Gliders have a complicated social structure.  Whenever the group is not all sleeping together, something is wrong.  Often we have no idea why they act as they do, but they have a reason for their actions. Do not leave the brother and sister together once they reach 5 or 6 months OOP.

As for the tail, please go to my website and read the article about hair loss.  nc.sugar.gliders.googlepages.com.  You should put an antibiotic ointment on the wound to prevent infection.  Regular Bacitracin or Neosporin will do.

Thanks for the question.  I hope this helps.  Good luck,

Betty