Biting the hand that feeds you

[mgranatosky]

Hello,

I am new to this forum and new to blue tongue skinks in general. Anyway, I just purchased a captive born (wild parents, but US born) Halmahera and I am working towards trying to create a hand-tamed animal for education presentations.

Overall, I am pleased with the progress so far. They are generally out all the time despite having multiple hides and I am trying to limit interactions only to feeding/spot cleaning. Today was the first day I tried hand-feeding and although there was some huffing and body flattening, I was shocked how quickly the very young skink ran up and took food from my fingers. I repeated this a few times, and every time there was some initial hissing, but then a successful hand feeding. However, I am a bit worried that this hand-feeding might be a bit overzealous. A few hits also resulted in biting my fingers. While these bites didn’t hurt, the last thing I want to do is associate a hand with a food source.

Essentially, I am looking for some advice before I cause irreparable damage.

Thanks

[kingofnobbys]

My experience with wild and captive breed skinks and dragons is if you persevere with hand feeding, they soon get the hang of the handfeeding lurk and will only bite the fingers that are holding the food by accident - ALWAYS the keeper's fault , usually due to poor timing, not being 100% attentive to the job in hand are the normal reasons for an accidental hand or finger tip nip.

Be thankful your per is a bluetongue and doesn't had an array of razer sharp teeth on each jaw.

A good technique is to never come from directly in front, but always give the food portion from one side of the mouth, less chance of an accident bite.

I tend to pet my skinks and dragons each hand feeding session, this also helps them associate the handfeedings with pleasureable experiences and produces a nice strong trusting bond with the lizard. I've tamed and trained wild rescued skinks and dragons and frog in under 2 weeks.