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.

Overhead heat sources are preferred but people have used heat tape with success. I personally use halogen flood bulbs supplemented by ceramic heat emitters when needed.

They definitely like to burrow. I have had good success with coconut chips (Critter Crumble) but others prefer chipped aspen, pure cypress mulch, fur mulch (Repti-Bark), and a few use coco fiber (Eco Earth). The substrate only needs to be deep enough for them to bury themselves.

Tank size: some say as small as 18x36 is the minimum but that is rather cruel considering many species will get longer than 18 inches. I use a 2ft by 6ft and personally would not ever go smaller than 2ft by 4ft for an adult. They can go straight into an adult size enclosure.

Food wise they will eat a large variety but high quality dog food is the preferred staple by most experienced breeders. Some highly successful breeders only feed dog food (usually canned but some use raw or dry foods). I feed primarily dog food and usually add something different each time for variety. You won't want to feed to much fruit, but they do love it. I wouldn't leave food in for more than a day since it may mold or otherwise get contaminated.

They need to eat multiple times a week when they are young (I fed mine every other day but they didn't always eat) and as adults can eat twice a week. They can go a week without food without a problem if they are a healthy weight.


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Be sure to go check out and join the forum over at BlueTongueSkinks.org and/or one of the larger Blue Tongue groups on Facebook.


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