Food 'Wiggle'?

[vvelvvet]

Pictures under are of my 6 month old Halmahera just sitting still for once, for reference and just because, but mainly I'm wondering two things:

1. She's done this since I got her, regardless of her size and the size of the food (always well within the between the eyes rule). But she'll start out with something of a slow-motion swallowing motion, then move her whole body side-to-side, starting from her head down. I've googled it, and all I got was people on leopard gecko forums either saying 'haha weird' or 'they're eating something way too big'. It's not for every swallow, maybe once or twice a meal and usually near the end.

Since she's been doing it forever, and has never done anything alarming after (vomit, choke, or not been able to digest), I'm just assuming it's one of those reptile things? Anyone else ever seen a skink do this 'wiggle'?

2. And also since I got her, she has a particular habit of being extremely lazy? and just. Dragging herself about, be it with just her front feet or just one foot if she's being particularly sluggish. When I first noticed it naturally I got upset and thought she had MBD in the spine or something, but she did later (and continues to) speed around whenever she likes on all four limbs and is more than mobile.

In the second picture, you can see how she just. Sort of drug herself out of her favourite hide with one foot.

[Fatal_S]

It is completely normal. They do not have the same independent throat muscles we have (we can swallow easily without moving our necks) - they often need to move the food down by pushing it down bit by bit doing the wiggle. If you watch a snake eat you will see they move their prey down in a very similar way.

Similarly, they will often also raise their heads up after eating/drinking so gravity helps move it towards the stomach.

And the not-using the back feet is also a common bluey behaviour. They're able to move easily without needing those feet, so why bother using them. As long as they can use all their legs when they need to (climbing for example, or if you touch the foot and they move away), it's normal.

Also, gorgeous skink

[JoshChimera]

My bts always moves very slow and drags his back legs as he cruises. My captive bred Emerald swift is the complete opposite! He runs at full speed while chasing down crickets and running away from me when I clean his water dish. My bts will run full speed when I try to take him out of his hide to check on his health; he uses all four feet when he is getting away. The wiggle when swallowing is common like Mel mentioned, I often see it while my bts wolfs down fruit. Then my bts lifts his head up after swallowing like you have described.

[splashy07]

Same behavior in all of mine. No worries. Sometimes they eat and move like a snake!

[vvelvvet]

It's good to see that this is all normal- I didn't even think to think about how snakes eat in relation to this, but it definitely makes sense.

Also it's nice to know for sure that this just laziness and being a dork on her part rather than some disorder, as one would assume in any other sort of animal. It's not an exaggeration from all the posts we've ever read that you'll learn something new every day about them.