Best Choices for Blue Tongue Skink Husbandry
So my own husband has become interested in Northern blue tongue skinks. So far it seems I'm the snake person while he adores our rescue leopard gecko and finds our crested geckos fascinating and adorable. I'm glad to add another creature to our care rotation, especially since blue tongues seem to eat a lot of what we already have on hand regarding vegetables, proteins, and fruits.
So I had a few questions about their husbandry.
Does one type of heat source help blue tongues to thrive more than another? Our current options are heat tape, (If so what wattage per foot/width?), a radiant heat panel mounted above, or a basking bulb/ceramic bulb. I've never used the basking bulbs before. I use hydrofarm thermostats but I'm thinking about investing in a few Vivarium Electronics models since we're up to 7 snakes and will be adding many more.
Is 6 square feet a nice size enclosure or closer to a minimum? The enclosure will be epoxy and polyurethane wood with either glass sliding doors or glass swing doors.
When they are young can they go straight into their adult enclosure or would it be better to partition the cage while they're small?
How long should I leave their foods before removing them?
Do they like to burrow/have deep substrate?
Lastly, how long can they go without food but with access to drinking water? We sometimes are gone 3-8 days, usually for holiday travel or an occasional vacation. We leave our other animals with fresh water and in the case of the geckos some mealworms/fruit mix too, but if it's better to board a skink I'd like to know.
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