Reptile & Amphibian Forums

I live in Togo West Africa and I saw someone selling a fire skink and its dehydrated. i bought it because i felt bad for it due to its bad condition, but i dont no wat to feed it because there are no pet stores here. if anyone could give some advice on how to feed it without a pet store around please do. thank you.

After a little online search, looks like you can feed fire skinks insects. Crickets, mealworms etc are all good. Not sure where you will be able to find insects without any petstores around. Here is a link to a care sheet and list of what foods to feed.

[url[http://www.reptileallsorts.com/fireskink-cs.htm[/url]

Thanks. The site really helped a lot.

First consern should be rehydrating the little rascal. Make sure it has access to water and let it drink all it wants. If it chooses to soak in the dish, even better. They DO eat insects so if you don't have some place to purchase them I suggest you start catching different insects in the area and try them till you find something it will eat. Good luck and keep us informed on how it does.

Quig

I caught some grasshoppers in my yard but they all drown in the water. Should I pull off their legs to make it easier for the fire skink to catch them and that way they won't drown as well.
thanks for replying so fast.

How much water do you use? Put a stick,etc in the water so they can climb .
Fire skinks cannot swim or swim badly so you dont want the water to deep .
I imagine tons of insects where you live which is great. Ants or stinging insects as you know shouldnt be used. Some beetles are fine but some give off "toxic" type secretions so they arent same for catterpillers with hair dont use them.
Grasshoppers/crickets are great . If your skink is dehydrated mist him a bit to first few days.
I know they come from Africa maybe not far from you. They mostly like to hide so give him substrate to do that and some hide areas and a basking area.
if you dont have access to bulbs for them to bask in your area(they need UV bulbs not regular incandescent bulbs though that will do for right now).
You might want to consider putting him out in an outdoor mesh enclosure if your temperature allows it . I have a feeling they are from your area so dont see why not. I know Uv bulbs and stuff they have in states and Europe can be hard if not impossible to get in other places.
Good luck
Lia
I

Ben, here's a link for ya
Link

Thank you for the link. It helped a lot.