oh pooh,2 of my babies have developed mbd

[Richard.C]

Thought i had better do an update on these two
As it cooled down i had them in a cage just recieving het through floor from a cage below,a plastic reptile cage,anyways they slowed down and stopped eating going into april and i kind of just left them be not seeing much movement from them,to cut a long storg short when the big northerns were mating,starting in early to mid may,it got to around sometime in early july that i decided id better check in on them and i found the young female to have serious shoulder scuffing with mild infection,and the male had retaliation scar on his lower right jaw didnt look fresh on either of them

Pic of the male a couple of days ago,light one,the dark one is a 1 year older female from the season before these hand me backs

20151125_055438.jpg

The gravid female,note still has raised scarring on shoulder

20151112_105805.jpg

J actually predicted she might be the first female to drop but 5 females already have so kinda got that wrong,first female went on sep 28th

On the posative they seem to be going great,i was suprised at finding they had mated as both were quite small back then,especially the lass, ut both have put on a good growth spurt and caught up to some of the 1 year older ones now,no worsening of kinks to tails

[Richard.C]

Looking at first pick of this thread,the females tail base kink actually appears to have improved

[AvaRose]

Hi all,

I'm new to having a BTS - I've only had my little guy for just over a month, but I do have a pet store experience I want to ask about while we're on the topic. I got my skink at a reptile show and off the bat I was feeding him a mix of greens/veggies and moist cat food. Then I went to a fancy pet store that actually specializes in reptiles, fish, and birds because I figured they would have more varied reptile food than your typical pet store, and also some more expertise in that area. I told the guy working there that I had just got a BTS and was feeding him cat food and was looking to pick up more reptile-specific foods. Specifically I had a can of snails and some tegu/monitor food in my shopping bag (figuring these would be my proteins that I would mix with greens & veggies from my local supermarket). He really frowned on feeding BTS cat food, and told me some horror stories about people whose BTS got so fat they couldn't move. He also advised me to swap out the monitor food for this tortoise & omnivorous lizard food: http://zoomed.com/db/products/EntryDeta ... SearchID=5

I was a little hesitant to use that as a staple because the first ingredient on that can is apples, and I know that fruits are supposed to be only a sometimes food, but I listened to him anyway. This week I've been mixing the omnivorous lizard food with the greens and throwing in a couple of snails. He is crazy about the snails and can be pursuaded to eat his greens/lizard food. Curious to hear if you think this is a better or worse diet than the cat food. Thanks!

[Susann]

Take any unopened cans back to the pet store and stick with the cat food, or better yet, switch to dog food.
It's not the worst food I've seen, but anything that's only 3% protein but a whopping 78% moisture isn't worth the high price I'm sure you paid for the can ...even if it was a bargain I certainly would steer far away from using it as a staple for an omnivorous lizard.

Cat food should be OK with added veggies and greens, but dog food has been proven a superior diet for skinks by breeders who have kept BTS for decades. Dog food is already formulated for a more omnivorous animal than cat food is, which is why most of us tend to use it over cat food.

If you ask non-BTS keepers about feeding dog or cat food to lizards, you are very likely to get the same type of reaction --horror stories of reptiles doing extremely poorly on it. You may even cop the same from some exotic vets out there. You just thank them for the advise and move away from them. And then you do what you did: you ask the question here.

Congrats on your new pet and welcome to the forum!

[Edward]

What Susann said.