BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

We have tons of snails around the yard and near the creek next to our house. I would love to feed some to Thor, but I am worried about him getting parasites from them? Is this a huge concern?

Just keep them in a little container for a couple days, with food and water, ( make sure its not lettuce ) and detox them.

But you said it's by a creek which sounds like it's public property so as long as they aren't eating pesticides they should be fine.

Why not lettuce

xxmonitorlizardxx wrote:Why not lettuce

I was wondering that too.

Not the OP asked about parasites not pesticides.

I'm not sure if snails can carry parasites that can be transferred to BTS.

Fatal_S wrote:

xxmonitorlizardxx wrote:Why not lettuce

I was wondering that too.

Well, based on what I've heard about gut-loading and what a lot of research has told me, whatever you feed the feeder insect ( or snails for this matter ) is the same thing that your bluey will eat.

And BTS can't have lettuce.

Maybe I'm wrong idk

Parasites that live in snails include horsehair worms, brown-banded broodsacs, and flukes. But it doesn't seem like anything will hurt the host. You should be fine

Any animal product that you feed to another animal can transfer parasites. Fortunately the powerful stomach acids in reptiles make a mess of most ingested material - some however will sneak though. You can safely assume that any bluey will have some form of parasite load but if the animals are kept in good general health you will never know. I remember reading somewhere about worms in shinglebacks postulating that there may have even been some mutual symbiosis going on but the mode of infection/host cycles were not known.

Here is a good example of effects in humans from eating slugs but also refs snails.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... -dare.html

Its not that lettuce will harm them in small amounts, its more the fact that lettuce is only water - no nutritional value whatsoever. Because of the high water content, it can cause diarrhea in small mammals and birds, so I am presuming possibly blueys as well. If your going to gut feed something, you had might as well feed it nutritionally high foods.

But if you are just feeding snails to keep them alive until you are sure they are safe, then lettuce would be perfectly fine. If anything, Id say lettuce would be a good food to feed snails for keeping alive purposes - it would remove the need for an addition water source.

Great info, thanks! If I shouldn't feed lettuce, what do I feed? Will they eat collards, and other greens that are good for BTS? Also since Thor is only 2 months is he old enough to eat snails with a shell? The snails we have in the yard have a hard, but thin shell?

I feed my feeders whatever I have: kale,lettuce,collards,carrots,potato,various fruits.

blackmailchan wrote:Just keep them in a little container for a couple days, with food and water, ( make sure its not lettuce ) and detox them.

But you said it's by a creek which sounds like it's public property so as long as they aren't eating pesticides they should be fine.

What if I have my BTS out in the yard (to explore and get some sun) and he eats a snail or more with out me knowing it?

isis1311 wrote:

blackmailchan wrote:Just keep them in a little container for a couple days, with food and water, ( make sure its not lettuce ) and detox them.

But you said it's by a creek which sounds like it's public property so as long as they aren't eating pesticides they should be fine.

What if I have my BTS out in the yard (to explore and get some sun) and he eats a snail or more with out me knowing it?

I take my BTS out in the yard to play and get sun. I have lots of snails around. Should I worry about him eating snails without me knowing, since it wasn't "detoxed" first? Will it hurt him?

isis1311 wrote:

isis1311 wrote:

blackmailchan wrote:Just keep them in a little container for a couple days, with food and water, ( make sure its not lettuce ) and detox them.

But you said it's by a creek which sounds like it's public property so as long as they aren't eating pesticides they should be fine.

What if I have my BTS out in the yard (to explore and get some sun) and he eats a snail or more with out me knowing it?

I take my BTS out in the yard to play and get sun. I have lots of snails around. Should I worry about him eating snails without me knowing, since it wasn't "detoxed" first? Will it hurt him?

Well you should never leave your animal unattended.

xxmonitorlizardxx wrote:

isis1311 wrote:

isis1311 wrote:

blackmailchan wrote:Just keep them in a little container for a couple days, with food and water, ( make sure its not lettuce ) and detox them.

But you said it's by a creek which sounds like it's public property so as long as they aren't eating pesticides they should be fine.

What if I have my BTS out in the yard (to explore and get some sun) and he eats a snail or more with out me knowing it?

I take my BTS out in the yard to play and get sun. I have lots of snails around. Should I worry about him eating snails without me knowing, since it wasn't "detoxed" first? Will it hurt him?

Well you should never leave your animal unattended.

Huh...no where in my post did I say or imply that I leave my animal unattended. I am not an irresponsible pet owner. I always have him around me. My yard has grass (just in case that wasn't obvious) and there have been times that he is nose down in the grass and was just wondering if he happens to eat a snail without me catching him doing it, if it would harm him, since the snails were not "detoxed" first.

Thank you for taking the time to comment on my post, but it was not helpful at all and did not answer my question.....that I can't seem to get an answer to....oh, well.

The answer is in general you don't have to worry.

If you live next to an incessant chemical user there could be cause for concern, or if you use snail baits in your garden.

Parasites are a possibility but most of us who feed live food have never had a problem that we could relate back to it.

There are ways and means of quality assuring the food that you feed, such as observation about possibility of toxic plants i.e Oleander. Probably one of the best indicators is distance from neighbours.

Some people advocate freezing of snails - I''m not sure this will make much difference to non free living stages of parasite larvae.

There are other bugs in some areas that are of more concern eg. fireflies which are toxic. To that end there are probably other things in foreign gardens to watch out for but not being an expert on US bugs I don't know.

Hope this helps.

Scotts1au wrote:The answer is in general you don't have to worry.

If you live next to an incessant chemical user there could be cause for concern, or if you use snail baits in your garden.

Parasites are a possibility but most of us who feed live food have never had a problem that we could relate back to it.

There are ways and means of quality assuring the food that you feed, such as observation about possibility of toxic plants i.e Oleander. Probably one of the best indicators is distance from neighbours.

Some people advocate freezing of snails - I''m not sure this will make much difference to non free living stages of parasite larvae.

There are other bugs in some areas that are of more concern eg. fireflies which are toxic. To that end there are probably other things in foreign gardens to watch out for but not being an expert on US bugs I don't know.

Hope this helps.

That does help! Thank you, very appreciated.

My skink goes crazy for snails, I think the only thing he likes more are big fat dubias.

I get all of my snails from my own yard which could possibly be exposed to pesticides. What I do is keep the snails in a little tubberware cup for 2 days then if they aren't bubbling over and dead, I toss them in the freezer for a least 2 weeks. Let them thaw out and feed them shell and all to your skink. I tend to break up the shell and remove the really hard areas before feeding them to Adalon now though.

Here are a few older videos of Adalon eating some live snails when he was younger. You can see he's quite enthusistic about them hehe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4E81q9JemM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQctQuGSX28