Reptile & Amphibian Forums

One of my 2 year old BTS (blue tongue skink) died today. I am posting this in the hopes someone will read it and it will prevent this tragedy from happening to them.

Over a year ago my wife brought home an animal skull as a souvenir and I thought it would dress up the skink cage a bit. I disinfected it and put it in and the 2 girls in the cage went wild over it. They played with it every day. They would climb on it and chew on it and drag it all over the enclosure. I have never seen a lizard enjoy a toy so much. Well this morning my son found one of the girls wedged in and stuck trying to climb through the skull. I don’t know how she got wedged in so tight but she was stuck good. I had to cut the bones to free her. I don’t know how long she was in there but she was very weak. I think she may have fractured some ribs trying to push through. I set her back in the cage after a quick warm shower and she seemed a bit better but she died very shortly there after.

I urge anyone with any animal that likes to dig or crawl through things to make sure that all openings are big enough for them to get completely through or make sure they are so small that their head won't even fit through the hole.

I will miss my little girl.

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Bennett

beardiedragon.com
Home of the Florida Orange

Sorry to hear about your lizard. You have my condolences!

I am so sorry to hear of you loss, and thank you for sharing the warning. I would never have guessed that that could happen. She got to live an interesting life for a skink because of her enriched environment, so don't blame yourself too much. we can only do our best to provide our reptiles with what they need, which includes interesting and novel things in their environments. Ultimately they are wild animals, and can get into trouble despite our best efforts.

So sorry to hear about your skink. I will definately keep your warning in mind, as I've gotten my first skink recently, and have been searching for 'toys' for her cage. I sure never would have thought about that problem, as they are so agile at climbing in and around things. Your warning will make sure my skink is safe. Thank you.

Leslie