HELP!Blue tonged skinks.

Hello there.I have been wanting to purchase 1-2 blue tonged skinks.Id like some information on these animals.I would read around some forums however theres not too many on skinks.I know males cannot live together and that sort of thing though i need to know things like cage sizings,diet,reptivite?,heat,ease to handle ext.if anyone could help me id greatly appreciate it.Thank you very much.

"I know males cannot live together"

I've kept 3 male northern BTS's together for over 4 years now w/o a problem. I only just found out they were males. I put each of them in a separate enclosure on newspaper and all 3 produced sperm plugs. I read this in a book as a way to sex them. Also since I didn't get any babies, I was pretty sure they were males anyway.

I have these guys in a 75 gallon fish tank with cypress mulch as a substrate. I have a basking light at one end with a thermal gradient from 100° to 75°.

As for diet, I feed a varied diet of soft canned cat food, fuzzy rats or stunned hopper mice, grapes, apples, bananas, ground turkey, quail eggs, superworms, crickets. I use Miner-All on the canned cat food, superworms and crickets 3 or 4 times a week.

They like to hide. At a yard sale I bought tunnels that were made for a train set, perfect for them and they love them.

They are neat animals and very easy, IMO, to care for. I just wish I had an adult female.

As for the males fighting, I don't know if they would start to fight if I introduced a female, maybe someone else would know the answer to that one???

Karen

thanks for your help.would i need to dust the crickets or millworms?and how is a 30 gallon for one?how big would i need for 2?and this may wound stupid but with the eggs you give them the eggs with the shell and they eat the whole thing?also would the turkey,chicken have to be cooked?thanks a bunch

I wouldn't suggest housing BTS of any sex together.

As for diet, you want about a 60/40 ratio favoring fruits/vegetables. BTS are fairly susceptible to obesity, don't go overboard with insects and meat.

When feeding eggs, you can actually feed them raw, just crack one open into a shallow dish. Or you can feed hard boiled eggs, just peel the shell off and chop into bite size pieces.

The eggs I feed are from button quail which are about the size of a grape and fed whole. I raise button quail so getting their eggs is not a problem. E2MacPets has good suggestions for feeding chicken eggs.

No cooked food.

Yes, you use cricket dust, I use Minera-All on their food.

30 gallon tank is good for one but it will get big so I wouldn't recommend two in a tank that size.

My 75 gallon tank is 4' long and about 18" wide.

Karen

Sorry Karen, I overlooked the fact that you were raising button quail. What wonderful creatures to work with!

You gave good advice on chicken eggs and that's what I used to give them before I became overrun with button quail. LOL

Karen

heh.thanks guys.thats a big help.and one final question.Do blue tonge skinks get along well with people?

And also..are sand fish skinks any different than blue tounged's?

Sandfish are insectivores and burrowers.

but are their habbits the same as blue tonged?is it jut the diet and digging part?