BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Hello! I don't have a blue tongued skink, but I do have a beardie and, as of today, a fire skink. I bought her at a convention, for fairly cheap. She is missing all toes on three feet, and on her remaining foot, the toes are just little nubs. I don't know what happened to her, but it doesn't seem to deter her!

I guess I was just wondering if anyone here has any experience with fire skinks? I bought a tank, cypress mulch, some hides, and a water dish. I have a heat lamp, I will be getting an undertank heater for the night in winters, and I can keep the environment sufficiently humid. She'll get some crickets from my beardie, and whatever other bug of the week I choose as treats for the two of them!

As an adult (about 14 inches - her tail is very short as well, I believe it is regrowing), can she eat adult crickets? And does anyone else have skinks with no toes? I'm curious to know if it's a different experience!

Also, anything you can tell me, I'm all ears! I just want to take care of her and provide the best home possible. She doesn't seem to be too skittish, although she is very fast!

Hi,welcome to the forum,

The loss of toes could be because it was kept in a dry environment or perhaps picked on by cagemates ect to,i personally dont know a great deal about fireskinks as in australia we can only keep some australian species

But from what you have written it sounds like you have the housing needs covered nicely,humidity holding substrate aect ect

What i like to do uf im not fully sure of there wants is offer them choices,bog temp gradients ect and watch how they use it,if up hot end mostly i see that as perhaps cage isnt warm enough or if down cool end alot perhaps cage is to warm and make adjustments accordingly

We have a few fireskink keepwrs on here so hopefully they see this thread and offer some opinions to

Hi! Thanks for the reply, I apologize I didn't see it until now!

Yeah, that's what I was told, that her environment was probably too dry at one point and caused shedding problems that resulted in the loss of her toes. She doesn't seem to have a lot of problems with that though! The biggest thing is obviously she has no traction, so when she is out of her tank and trying to climb around, sometimes I have to help her. But in her tank, everything is low enough, so she can get on top of her hut no problem, if she wants.

That's what I've mostly been doing! She's been getting more and more accustomed, I see her a lot more during the day now. Sometimes she's out fully, sometimes she's in her water dish. Even when she's burrowed, she usually pokes her head out. So it's getting easier to tell what's good about her tank and what I can change. I've also had her out of her tank a few times, and she's very good with it!

Yes, if anyone who owns a fire skink sees this and wants to chime in, feel free! I joined this forum because at some point I want to get a blue tongue skink, so I wanted to read through some forums here, but I figured since I have Ruby now, I would post about her.