Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I left my BTS with a friend for about a month while I was out of town only to come back to a much more picky and skittery animal. He used to immeadiately go to the food when I would put it in his cage (around noon) and now he hides and doesn't touch it while I'm there. I'll come back and he'll have pushed the food around his dish without much evidence of actually eating. My friend mentioned that he was also not eating much at her house and I noticed since I got him back that his feces have been rather small. Then today I noticed there were bits of the aspen substrate in them! I only switched to aspen substrate about 2-3 weeks before I left him with my friend but he was eating well up until I left. Is it possible that he is eating the substrate and it is causing him to not be hungry? My friend also has plenty of other animals at her house (and I don't) so is it more likely that he has a parasite? Or could it just be stress? I'm unsure what to do.

Typically, no one likes to give too much advice in these situations - mainly because none of us are veterinarians.

While I doubt that parasites are the problem, it does sound like it is possible he could have ingested enough aspen to cause an impaction.

Skinks are curious and will eat things that are not good for them. We know of one skink that ate a camera carrying cord (about 10" of nylon with a plastic slide). It took a vet to help the skink pass it through!

We have had a few skinks that ate recycled paper pellets... fortunately, they pass fairly easily. We don't use aspen as a substrate - too splintery.

I would suggest a vet visit.

Morgana

Aspen bedding this last summer.Cost me a bundle in vet bills but we managed to get it passed without invasive surgury.We used mineral oil by mouth and enemas.She finally passed a huge mass of aspen mixed with feces...This is because she would knock food into the aspen.When I removed the plate it would be hidden and she would then go back later and find it all covered in wood shavings and eat it anyways.

I now use a divider in her cage.Half aspen, half newspaper.She baskes and eats and has her water on the newspaper side and her hides on the aspen side.It works fine so far..In fact she will not go poo in her aspen but only on the newspaper, which makes it easy for me to clean.
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I use Aspen ... but it is the shaved variety. It has no little splitery pieces.
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1 Eastern Blue Tongue Skink
2 Tarahumara Mountain Kingsnakes - Knoblochi
1 Thayer's Kingsnake - Thayeri
2 Golden Greek Tortoises
1 Pyxie Frog - 14 years old

That what I used.I notice that different brands have different sized shavings.The ones that plugged up my skink were the larger sized shavings.At least a half inch peices.I dont use the splintered stuff.
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