BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

So a few months back, some of us had a conversation about a pelleted diet from Australia designed especially for BTS. I special ordered it to give it a try and Coomassie LOVED it. He actually started refusing other food, waiting for us to give him this food (we have termed it his "crunchies". It is now a primary staple in his diet. I realized we were running low since he primarily eats his crunchies and bugs (roaches and superworms). The good news is he is doing great. He is growing and is super healthy. The other good news is it has come down in price so it is only about $30 to have it shipped to my apartment. However, I'm getting a lot of funny looks when I tell people I special order my skink food from Australia. In an attempt to make me feel a little less crazy, what are the crazy things you do for your skink?

Darn! I'm already poor enough. But now after seeing this, I'll HAVE to try this food

Anyway, this will sound kind of crazy... Littlefoot used to be a very picky eater (definitely not so anymore). But it stressed me out so bad, especially when he was a baby. Anyway, I got kind of desperate at one point, and I sat him down on a table with his food on a plate in front of him. Then I would kneel at eye level so we were face to face. I would take little spoonfuls of his food, and eat them in front of him.

The best part was this did the trick! When he saw me eating the food, he dug in. When I did this, I could get him to eat anything I wanted him to. So for about a year and half, I shared meals with Littlefoot at the dinner table every single feeding.

This concerns me somewhat, that you are feeding Coomassie on pelleted skink food. Hmmm My suggestion would be to use it occassionally. They don't have pelleted skink food in the wild. In their natural environment they will eat what they can when they can. I haven't sourced pelleted skink food in Aust. and I live in Australia. Blueys have distinct personalities and develop likes and dislikes in food, especially when there's large amounts of it around, namely from us bluey owners. A balanced diet is what is aimed for.
I shall investigate 'pelleted skink food'.

Blackmailchan - Good story!

Laurie - I agree with the likes and dislikes being developed by excess. I am kind of curious about the pelleted food though, could be good - do you have a link to the website?

The skink we just took in, Riff-Raff, was supposed to be an extremely picky eater. When the BF picked him up the previous owner was trying to list off all the foods that he would occasionally eat, but the BF didn't really pay attention as feeding is up to me (not his problem!). I just offered the same food mix as the others get weekly and after not eating too much the first week he has cleaned his plate every other feeding. I think they just fed too often and if he wasn't hungry he selectively picked out all his favorites leading them to believe he was really picky. Or else my skink cooking is just amazingly good.

Lauriek wrote:This concerns me somewhat, that you are feeding Coomassie on pelleted skink food. Hmmm My suggestion would be to use it occassionally. They don't have pelleted skink food in the wild. In their natural environment they will eat what they can when they can. I haven't sourced pelleted skink food in Aust. and I live in Australia. Blueys have distinct personalities and develop likes and dislikes in food, especially when there's large amounts of it around, namely from us bluey owners. A balanced diet is what is aimed for.
I shall investigate 'pelleted skink food'.

Most pelleted/kibbled foods are balanced diets and really dont need to be supplemented at all. I personally dont think there is any concern with using this diet. I guess I have the biggest issue with people stating that "skinks dont eat pelleted food in the wild" or they dont eat dog food in the wild. Are these really valid points seeing how, to my knowledge, NOBODY has really offered their skinks only wild growing plants of Australia, insects caught in their Australian lawn, the occasional carcass from a dead Australian animal, etc (or insert native country of said species). I have never heard of a wild skink eating cooked meats, chopped up collard greens, a dash of calcium powder, some banana, etc.

Katrina wrote:do you have a link to the website?

If I had to take a guess, it would be this:
http://www.vetafarm.com.au/products/LIZARD-FOOD.html

ReptileKing wrote:Most pelleted/kibbled foods are balanced diets and really dont need to be supplemented at all. I personally dont think there is any concern with using this diet. I guess I have the biggest issue with people stating that "skinks dont eat pelleted food in the wild" or they dont eat dog food in the wild. Are these really valid points seeing how, to my knowledge, NOBODY has really offered their skinks only wild growing plants of Australia, insects caught in their Australian lawn, the occasional carcass from a dead Australian animal, etc (or insert native country of said species). I have never heard of a wild skink eating cooked meats, chopped up collard greens, a dash of calcium powder, some banana, etc.

This is a very good point.

I haven't looked at this one yet, but there are certainly formulated diets out there that I trust a lot (for example, Mazuri).

Coomassie wrote:So a few months back, some of us had a conversation about a pelleted diet from Australia designed especially for BTS. I special ordered it to give it a try and Coomassie LOVED it. He actually started refusing other food, waiting for us to give him this food (we have termed it his "crunchies". It is now a primary staple in his diet. I realized we were running low since he primarily eats his crunchies and bugs (roaches and superworms). The good news is he is doing great. He is growing and is super healthy. The other good news is it has come down in price so it is only about $30 to have it shipped to my apartment. However, I'm getting a lot of funny looks when I tell people I special order my skink food from Australia. In an attempt to make me feel a little less crazy, what are the crazy things you do for your skink?

I never did order any of these pellets. Too expensive to feed to my army of skinks. However, I have been supplementing my skinks diet with Mazuri Insectivore diet and am seeing great results as well. Most if not all eat them with no hesitation. I pay about $40 for a 40# bag of this diet, much cheaper than the Vetafarm diet.

I've been supplementing for a couple of years with Mazuri Insectivore, Mazuri Omnivore, and a tiny bit of Mazuri Tortoise since I have so much of it on hand. They just help to vary the diet a bit, and the skinks seem to do well on this.

doss wrote:I've been supplementing for a couple of years with Mazuri Insectivore, Mazuri Omnivore, and a tiny bit of Mazuri Tortoise since I have so much of it on hand. They just help to vary the diet a bit, and the skinks seem to do well on this.

If I remember correctly, the omnivore diet is pretty large pellets. How do you feed these? I would like to feed this as well as the insectivore, but didnt know how to feed other than to crush it. I love the insectivore diet because of its small pellets.

ReptileKing wrote:If I remember correctly, the omnivore diet is pretty large pellets. How do you feed these? I would like to feed this as well as the insectivore, but didnt know how to feed other than to crush it. I love the insectivore diet because of its small pellets.

That's right, they are pretty large - the largest of the three Mazuri diets I mentioned by far. I soak these for a little while in warmish water so that they get a little bit soft but still retain their form. This makes it very easy for the blueys to eat, and they really love this stuff.

For the pink tongues, I have to moisten and crush.

Yes, Brad is right about the food I'm using. Having just one skinker, the 350 g bottle lasts me nearly 6 months. Since I only have one, I had problems with stuff like dog food going bad. Coomassie also gets lots of bugs gutloaded with greens and calcium. I do occasionally still invest in dog food and greens but he actually seems to be doing better on the pelleted diet. We feed him the bugs so he gets some exercise. We make him chase roaches around on the floor.

I'm not a big fan of pellet food for any animal but I have used that Vetafarm pellet food only as a supplement to stretch out the protein. They wouldn't touch it at first but now eat it all enthusiastically. Mine only eat Australian food. They never get dog or cat food.

As a contra to Coomassie, I feed my rabbits on imported American Timothy hay. Doing my bit for the balance of trade.

Norm do you only feed them native plants and native animals?

Scotts1au wrote:Norm do you only feed them native plants and native animals?

Native animals yes. Although the snails are not native they have been here long enough to have Australian citizenship.

I would like to feed them native plants but I still don't know which they eat. The wildies are not too fussy either, they like to have a dig around our compost heap and raid our neighbour's strawberry patch.

ReptileKing wrote:Most pelleted/kibbled foods are balanced diets and really dont need to be supplemented at all. I personally dont think there is any concern with using this diet. I guess I have the biggest issue with people stating that "skinks dont eat pelleted food in the wild" or they dont eat dog food in the wild. Are these really valid points seeing how, to my knowledge, NOBODY has really offered their skinks only wild growing plants of Australia, insects caught in their Australian lawn, the occasional carcass from a dead Australian animal, etc (or insert native country of said species). I have never heard of a wild skink eating cooked meats, chopped up collard greens, a dash of calcium powder, some banana, etc.

I just have to put this out there. I have. I had no idea what to feed Mazi at first, so I followed the wild ones around and just gathered up whatever they ate

Although I do find it odd that Ive never seen reptile pellets from Australia whilst in Australia...Hmm

For all the Aussies, the original post on the food was from Caleb. I don't know anything about Australia geography (and i don't remember where Caleb is from) but it is around somewhere.

Their doesn't seem to be a whole lot different about that diet than many dog foods out there....the nutritional content is comparable to a lot of them. The relatively high fat content in this diet compared to some other lizard diets has got to be due to the "Tasmanian mutton bird oil". Its not completely off base as the various invertebrates BT skinks consume in the wild are probably decently fatty as well. Gotta love he promo video!

Again, this stuff seems very similar in ingredients to some of the higher end dry dog foods out there.


As for me, our car got stuck in a bit of a snowstorm and thus detoured to an 8 hour drive home in chilly weather. Billy, of course, slept under the layers of clothes I wore and was perhaps a little more comfy than me as we both dozed off.

critterguy wrote:As for me, our car got stuck in a bit of a snowstorm and thus detoured to an 8 hour drive home in chilly weather. Billy, of course, slept under the layers of clothes I wore and was perhaps a little more comfy than me as we both dozed off.

Sounds like Billy is lucky to have you