loss of tailtips

[critterguy]

So my original male lost a good portion of his tail as a baby. Apparently I tried to hard to remove some stuck shed and the last inch of tail dried up and fell off. Now that I am raising another baby I am a bit paranoid of her losing it as I'd like to have one complete skink, lol. Just curious how common this is and how many members have skinks with regen tails.

His tail has regenerated enough that uninitiated generally have no idea he's missing anything.

[xxmonitorlizardxx]

I haven't seen that many recently... usually they lose their tails from dog,cat,and child attacks.

[Katrina]

I have skinks with health problems, missing toes etc but all have their tails. From my experience toe loss is much more common than tail loss. I have only seen a couple blueys with regen tails, I think the couple I saw lots portions due to being housed together and fighting.

[Jeff]

I have never had one lose any part of it's tail. I was overly worried about it when I got my first. I was almost afraid to touch her tail for fear that it would come off. Now tails are a big part of handling a couple of my blueys.

I occasionally find a little leftover shed on a tail tip. If it doesn't come right off with a quick gentle scratch with my fingernail, I will hold a damp cloth on it for a few minutes. If that doesn't do it, I will leave it alone until the next day. I would never work "hard" to get it off, for fear of doing more damage than good. Even "stuck" shed on a tail tip will come off easily when it is ready. The problems come if it stays on past the time when it's ready, and the tail outgrows it. That's when it becomes a restrictive band.