Reptile & Amphibian Forums

My blue tongue skink is quite new to his home, just under 2 weeks. He is already an adult when I got him, and he has been getting used to his surroundings I guess.

He ate a little bit the first day he got here (one bite cat food), since then he has shown little interest in food. He has been in his hide most of the time, only coming out rarely then going back inside. I think maybe he is not used to his new cage. He was eating fine before, as he pooped a big poop the first day he got here.

Since then, he hasn't eaten much, but just these three days he voluntarily tried to eat. However, even though I give him a mix of different foods, the only think he eat is raw chicken. I mix in cat food, banana, strawberries, greens, chicken, I even tried a little beef to see if he would take it and get him to eat, but he only eat chicken. I chop if small mix together and somehow he is able to manipulate it with his tongue so that the chicken he swallows but everything else sstuck to it comes out.

Even with the chicken, he doesn't seem overly enthusiastic. He will lick at it if I hold it in front of him with tongs, then drop it in the plate he would eat it.

His cage is 100F in basking spot, 80 - 85 in other areas. Reptisun 5.0 UVB 6 inches from him when basking area.

What can I do to help?

By the way even with the raw chicken he doesn't eat much of it, just a couple bites. I have kept blue tongue skinks before and they eat a lot more than this.

I feel cat food should only be used as a sort of binder. I finely chopped my greens (collard greens, dandelion greens, etc) and mix it completely with the cat food. Cat food with more 'sauce' than chunks work best. For protein I typically offer insects such as superworms, silkworms or hornworms. The beetle form of superworms is a special treat I offer whenever an escaped superworm pupates and I find their beetle flying or crawling around.

As you recently bought this skink recently, contact the person you bought it from and ask what they fed their skink. Matching the diet may get him to eat..then you can slowly change it to a better diet if its not all that healthy.
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PHLdyPayne

Forum Princess

I understand it is necessary to give the skink good nutritional balance in his diet, but this first step is just trying to get him to eat at all with any kind of regularity.

As far as contacting the person that I have tried. As soon as he got his money he won't answer any emails at all.

He started eating well today. Yay!

Guess he was just really slow to get adjusted. Glad he is eating better.
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PHLdyPayne

Forum Princess

Well I guess I celebrated too soon. Not eating again for the last 2 feedings.

should I just accept this and know that they sometimes go off feed in the later months? Or should I do something about it?

He's a full adult right? I have found adults don't eat every day, so feeding 2-3 times a week is fine. If you have a good gram scale, weigh him weekly to monitor any weight loss. If it stays constant, then you don't have anything to worry about, unless he's already underweight.

Do you have any pictures of your skinks? Posting a few will give us a good idea of his current physical condition and including his current weight and length will help too.
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PHLdyPayne

Forum Princess

He is either full or near full adult. I only have one skink currently. He is nice and fat yet pretty firm and solid. I'll look into taking some pictures later but too lazy now LOL! He's definitely not skinny or malnourished or anything. I do know you don't feed every day. I was feeding every other day.

I notice that he doesn't want to eat out of the "bowl", but when I accidentally dropped onto the substrate when trying to feed him with tongs, he would want to eat it from the substrate. I of course don't want that as I don't want him to eat substrate. It's not a high bowl, just a low tray with maybe 1.5cm raised sides, like those that they use for land tortoises water dish, or bottom of flower pots. I also tried a tile but he would push all the food into the substrate. I don't want him to accidentally eat any substrate so maybe I should switch back to newspaper and instead give him hides to "burrow" in instead?

What i used to use was a very shallow plastic dish, with slopping sides. Normally he would eat out of it or they bit the sides and dumped it all over their heads..so I typically wedged it between his hide and the side of the cage I had mine in. I used papertowel for my substrate so I wasn't worried about ingestion of the substrate.

What you can do is lay a newspaper down over the substrate you are using now, then place a low wide dish. What could work good is the lid of Ben & Jerry icecream containers as they do have a low lip which will keep worms from crawling out right away and help prevent your skink from just pushing it off. Some 2 litre (or 1-2 quart) ice cream containers may have a good useable lid on them too. I am in Canada so not sure what brands of icecream you have there which coincide or are identical to what we have up here. The 2l tubs of icecream often have a plastic lid that is round or oval with a half inch or so lip around them.

If you prefer a more fancier feeding dish I am pretty sure Exo Terre or Zoo Med produce low sided feeding dishes as well.
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PHLdyPayne

Forum Princess