Cage mates

[Logancrook]

I know that blueys are really territorial but I say a video on YouTube of a guy that housed his 2 plated lizards and his skink together. He said he's done it for about a year with no issues. He also that that his skink has gotten aggressive towards other blueys but not anything of another species (like the plated lizards). I think that this is just an accident waiting to happen but I wanted to hear what others thought about this.

[donkeybuff]

I've seen that video as well. I don't think it's a great idea. The plated lizards are almost certainly African WC animals, meaning they most likely have parasites. If they were from indonesia/australia, maybe the bluey would do okay with the parasites, but blueys have no exposure at all to african parasites and are at high risk for getting disease due to them. The same applies to the plated lizards and the bluey's parasites. Also, although he said they have gotten along for a year, that doesn't mean they will be friends forever. If anything goes wrong, I have a feeling that he will be looking at a dead or injured lizard. Also, there are definitely husbandry differences for the two animals (humidity, temps) that mean that either one or both of the lizards will not have its needs met.

[Tom]

I don't mix any species of reptiles for all of the reasons you guys already mentioned. I also quarantine new members of the SAME species before introduction.

[Richard.C]

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Theres also stumpies in with these guys,normally any issues are with there own kind,but sometimes they dominate another species to,i also have eastern waterdragons in with blotchies in another cage and cunningham skinks

[donkeybuff]

Richard, I think you do it well, with all of your animals being from the same land mass and requiring generally the same care. Yours also have tons of space. The sudan plateds were in with the bluey in either a 4x2 or 6x3 (can't remember), which doesn't give much room for any of them to run away from each other.

[Richard.C]

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Big northern male in with cunningham skinks indoors

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Centralian blueys indoors with hosmer skinks

[Richard.C]

Centralians were wild caughts,as were the cunninghams,got a visit from dse about them as naughty previous owner got nabbed nabbong things from the wild

Wildcaughts can live healthy long lives without ever needing a vet if they are happy in captivity and in reasonable shape to begin with,stressed and not kept right then you are likely to have issues as immune system slows down,ive got a few wild caught skinks and even longterm legally collected from the wild sand goannas,been in captivity over ten years,never seen a vet,mind you the wild caughts here dont go through the stresses of importation the non aussies do

[Logancrook]

Richard your animals look great! Like donkeybuff said though, you give your animals plenty of room and this guys doesn't.

[Tom]

So Richard, are you advocating that people go ahead and mix species from different parts of the world? Not sure what it is you are trying to demonstrate here. So you have mixed some Australian species together and nothing bad has happened yet. Is this a practice that you wish to encourage?

[Sebastian]

Just my two cents. My first introduction to skinks was a fire skink rescue named Oliver. He was housed with two bearded dragons, by the time I got him he'd lost the end of his tail to a bite and poor humidity and was missing about 12/20 of his toes. He was extremely fearful and aggressive and was literally bleeding when I got him.

While I think one may be able to house skinks of similar type, flat out keeping completely different reptiles housed together, that are from different parts of the world without incredibly adequate room is nothing short of being a lazy cheap-skate who doesn't want to put the time and money into properly caring for each species that person owns. In my not so humble opinion if you don't have the money or don't want to buy a separate set-up for each species you own, you should not own that animal, period.

That being said, there are wrong ways and right ways to keep different animals together, in the video we see the wrong, lazy way of doing it and then we have an example like Richard's set-up which IMO, is beyond adequate.

[Richard.C]

Keeping smaller skinks with beardies is asking for trouble,its lucky it wasnt eaten

[Logancrook]

I don't know much about bearded dragons but I assume they can get pretty aggressive considering how bad of shape the fire skink was in.

[Teacup]

I don't know much about bearded dragons but I assume they can get pretty aggressive considering how bad of shape the fire skink was in.

They can be territorial and they will try and eat anything that moves! Natures garbage disposals, they are.