BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

My bts is 2 and a half years. She is the only one I have had. She is a pet. I don't breed from her but just enjoy her.
I have handled her everyday since she was born should I still do that while she is in brumation????????

Any suggestions would be appreciated. I would miss her too much if I can't handle her for awhile everyday but I don't want to upset her natural circle.

Is this the first time she brumated? Did you lower her temperatures this year? Sometimes it doesn't matter if you do or not, they can decide they are going to brumate even if you keep the temperatures constant all year. However, if you did something different this year from last year and it caused her to brumate, you might not want to do it next year.

If your skink is sleeping, I would recommend leaving her alone. Try to put yourself in her position. If you were asleep, would you be ok with someone coming into your bedroom in the middle of the night and physically pulling you out of bed just because they wanted to look at you for awhile? It is also probably not the healthiest thing for your BTS to be disturbed while brumating. When they brumate, their body partially shuts down. At the same time they stop eating, they stop using any energy, and therefore don't need any nourishment. When you wake her up, she will become active at least for awhile, but she won't know whether to eat and stay active, or to go back to sleep when you put her down.

I know it can be hard to leave them alone while they are bruiting, but it really is the best thing for her.

Thanks Jeff. She brumated last year and I did disturb her sorry to say. I was being selfish.
it is sooo hard not to see her every day but I do know that i must leave her alone.
She started brumating a month earlier this year than last year so winter has started earlier this year. She is my weather guage!
I am still a newbe but I miss her. I will leave her alone promise.
She is just so special to me.
Thx for giving me the courage to leave her.

My highlight everyday is knowing that I can handle her at night when dinner and everything else is done and I settle on the lounge with her.

Thx again

jessie wrote:She is just so special to me.
Thx for giving me the courage to leave her.

My highlight everyday is knowing that I can handle her at night when dinner and everything else is done and I settle on the lounge with her.

My thoughts exactly. It was hard not to handle my BTS last brumation, but I survived... You can do it too x)

Thx JR. It is so good to know that others go through the same thing and understand.

It has been two days now that I haven't picked up Jessie!!

I did take one little peek though. How can I last another 3 months!
But I will do it.

Get another baby and hope it stays up all winter?

OK I get your drift. So I won't post my feelings.
I will just post if I have a problem.

I was being totally serious. I hate wanting to play with a skink and it's not up for it, so I got lots of skinks. A bit more work, but now there's always a skink or 10 willing to cuddle with me, even all winter. I don't recommend getting lots if you don't want to, but having 2-3 is no more work than 1, and since they're all such individuals it's really neat to have a few.

Sorry I misunderstood. I am not in a position to get more blueys yet but one day I would like a northern.
I am still THE biggest newbe so everything to do with Jessie is a big deal to me as I want to do the right thing.

I would definitley like to breed Jessie if I can in the future but I would have to know a lot more than I do now.
Thx for all replies

Fatal_S wrote:Get another baby and hope it stays up all winter?

I was going to post the same advice. Not meant in a mean way at all!

I miss them when they brumate too, so it is nice because usually one or two decide not to bother.

My Babe hasn't brumated yet but my beardies have and it is really hard not to wake them up to handle them. I LOVE Babe and she is the most gentle skink I've ever seen. I can't walk by her cage without at least talking to her and love to take her out to cuddle. She nuzzles in my neck or on my head and its just so cute. I have alot of reptiles and I agree that having more than one is helpful so you always have someone to play with.

So is there a particular breed that does not like to brumate or is it just a trait of some skinks????
Sorry I was being a bit "touchy" before but I just love jessie

jessie wrote:So is there a particular breed that does not like to brumate or is it just a trait of some skinks????

I wasn't going to mention it, because it really doesn't help you at all... but T. gigas species seem to not always 'get' the brumation thing in North America. Likely because they are very equatorial and so in a temperate region they don't get the same clues / signals that it is time to brumate. So, quite often, unless the owner forces brumation by lowering photoperiod / temps etc they just keep waking up for meals.

I think it is also some skinks though, and not just limited to gigas spp.

thx for that.