Are skinks neophobic?

[amb44]

I was thinking about this in regards to delays in eating when first brought to a new environment. I know rats need time to warm up to new foods so won't touch them for a while, and wondered if the same could be applied to skinks since presumably there is a diet change?

Amy

[Scotts1au]

I think like the rest of us, we tend to get set in our ways. Animals are programmed to do things that work for them. Blueys learn all manner of things about their environment. In the wild they have a network of escape routes, they learn familiar foods, where to look, how to get. I have found with my blotchies that they even seem to recognise individual people and react differently.

I find it interesting that baby blueys take quite readily to a large selection of foods. As they get older - past the first few weeks they get a hankering for animal products and when they mature are more willing to accept vegetable matter. I believe this behaviour to be pre-programmed. So if you are trying to introduce vegetable products to animal in those adolescent stages it will take longer. In addition if they have been fed what they want will be more difficult again. Ironically they seem to be more willing to accept more variety of foods when older than when maturing.

They do learn that if dog food for example comes regularly, part of their environment is that dog food comes regularly. I have found (back in the day) with WC animals they were actually more willing to accept a wide variety of foods, but individuals fell into the routine of dog food very quickly and needed to be more hungry than I liked them to be before accepting other foods, also scincoides are harder to bring around than nigrolutea. So I'm assuming that IJs and gigas are similar in that way to scincoides.