Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hello all! Just wanted to update you all on Gertie and family (Corucia z. aka prehensile tailed skinks)...
Gertie and Chip had another set of twins in mid December- I was getting worried as her last 2 births have been in October, but they arrived safe and are doing well. Last week I had a scare as I could only find one of them- and after convincing myself the second baby was not in the enclosure I turned the room upside down and began working outward. I gave up after 2 hours as I had to go to work and wondered all day if someone had eaten it or was the poor thing lying dehydrated in some dark corner. When I returned home that night- there they both were on the food shelf. Go figure- I have no idea where it was hiding in the enclosure! Gertie and Chip are doing well, as are their three older/bigger babies. The two littlest ones are fat and feeding. Their first twins (Jenny and Candy who turned out to be male) were rehomed last year as they were chasing their mom.
Happy Skinking! jess b

Hey jess!!!
I was just wondering if you had fallen off the face of the Earth and then I see you posting. Gertie sure has a knack for having twins. What is this, her third set of twins? Candy, renamed Microchip, is doing very well. He is eating very well and climbing every surface possible. My female, Flicka, seems to be putting on some weight, so it would seem Microchip has inherited his fathers' libido. Hopefully any offspring my pair may produce look like their Grandmother Gertie. She is a very pretty skink. How is your baby (Amelia?) doing? She is what, almost 9 months old now? How are your other, non-human, children doing, the parrots, dobermans, and the sand boa? I hope everyone there is doing well. I will see if I can post some pictures, but I am horrible with my digital camera, so i guess we shall see.
Nice to hear from you again, Josh

Hi Josh, good to hear from you! Thanks for the Microchip and Flicka update- he was the nicest of the babies out of Gertie. How big is he now? The next oldest baby 'Bletcher' is much larger than Chip now- and I saw him following Gertie and sniffing her neck and back last night- they grow up too fast!!! > Yes, Gertie has had 3 sets of twins now at our house, plus one large singleton. This puts me in the position of too many PTS again for the one cage. We need a bigger house! One room for the birds, one room for the kid, one room for the adults, the guest room does triple duty as guest room/office/reptile room. I go back and forth between wanting to build another PTS cage and moving Bletcher over and getting him a friend and sending him elsewhere. The decision would be so much easier if there was another avaliable wall somewhere.
So the other 'neonate' Amelia is doing well- she sits and scoots (and sort of crawls), she eats well and is a chubby healthy little thing. She throws food on the ground for the dogs- and they can't decide which is the better hunting ground- under the highchair or under the parrot perches... She has no interest in the PTS yet except she likes it when the humidifier mist comes on.
Best wishes, Jess b

Microchip as a baby, in case you hadn't seen this before. He is the little on on the right with the big lip freckle.

Jess,
I believe Microchip was full grown when I got him, but I am not sure. It seems like he has put on some weight. However, when ever I try to weigh him, he won't stand still long enough for the scale to stop moving, so I really don't know his exact weight. I am not sure how much he weighed when I got him, so I don't really know if he has gained any weight. I think he is a little over 400 grams, but as he doesn't stand still, that number is just a shot in the dark. Flicka was under 400 grams before I got Microchip, and now she is about 450 grams! I have never measured their length or girth, but I will start doing thatand recording their progress. I just got a cool new yellow measuring tape(the kind used for fabrics and what not), so I think it will be fairly easy to measure them. It is good to hear Amelia is doing well. I will try to get some photos up soon. Josh

Thanks for the congrats! I was acutally out of town over christmas, so even though I suspected a pregnancy I had no idea that she was about to give birth. It could have even been while I was gone, as the little guy's umbilicus is nearly healed already. I have no idea if he has eaten yet, but I did get him to drink from the sprayer several times since he was discovered. I have made a serious effort not to be too involved with both my groups, other than required maintainance and health checks, I have hardly had any of the six (now seven! out of their enclosures. I hoped that this would reduce the environmental stress and encourage breeding, yea I was right!

Thanks for the advice.

Kisha

Sorry for any confusion. This is what happens when you do 5 things at once!

Kisha

Fantastic news. Congrats on yet another successful breeding.

n/p
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Edward
Carpe diem