BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Boots at four months old and 13 inches long.

Love the colors!! Gorgeous little guy!

Such a cutie! What a face.

I guess were all odd because my three year old daughter and I think it’s a very cute lizard but the wife thinks they are so ugly lol. We had a bearded dragon and the wife held it all the time and thought it was cute. I think berdies are cool looking but I have to say, skinks are much better looking than the NORMAL green bearded dragons. What are your thoughts on the looks of the two?
I’d like to add an observation. I used newspapers for the last couple of months and decided to get cypress for bedding. The lizard was not out much at all on the news paper and now that I added substrate, Boots has been out basking all day!!!!!

bluesrt wrote:NORMAL green bearded dragons.

Green???

Well Kinda a tan/gray/brown/green mix or morph of colors. Now Idk lol, when I think about it what color the normal dragons are. He seemed green to me and seemes to turn mor towards a black/gray tone at times. LOL I hope people dont read this and think a bearded dragon changes colors.

I was a bit concerned that you'd been keeping an iguana or something unknowingly

I love beardies for their calmness and ability to hang on to my shirts, but the spikes & daily-maintenance weren't for me. I think BTS are way cuter But I may be a bit biased.

I find that the daily maintenance of the bearded dragon was probably less than my skink. I used play sand as a substrate and the dragon never had liquid urine to speak of and the waste was very easy to clean up. The live food was the main hassle but as she got older I kept her on a veggie diet only. I used an uvb/uva bulb and no vitamin supplement. After 5 years she just stoped eating but would go outside and act fine, then up and died the next day. Not sure if it was something she got from outside or lack of nutrients or what, But I done research on BTS like crazy and decided to go with rep cal multi / calcium d3 and no uvb light. Also I won’t be taking Boots outside. So I thought the bearded dragon could live on veggie based diet and she did for about 4.5 years. I think I will get another beardie as it seems like I have found a perfect easy live food. They won’t be cheap to feed but reptiworms will be a perfect staple food. So is that what was harder about keeping bearded dragons, the diet?

The diet was my big concern. I've looked after them in the past and they pretty much needed food every second day, and lots of it is live bugs. I hate crickets and can't keep roaches right now (and they're expensive to buy singly). I also refuse to leave live food (except mealworms) in with a reptile unsupervised, which takes more time for feeding. I only feed my adult BTS weekly, and not live food (once in a blue moon), so they're super easy. I can also leave my BTS for a month without worrying, while a beardie couldn't do that.

I was the same with the crickets. I loved meal worms kept n oatmeal. The dragon puked them up live, so no more mealworms. And if you don't like the spikes, some breeders have smoothed leatherbacks. I have not seen one in person, but I bet they feel really neat.

When I was originally looking into reptiles I chose BTS over beardies for the live food reason and because I felt beardies were too common. It took quite a bit of searching to find a young BTS in Alberta, whereas there is always a surplus of beardies.

I don't have any actual experience with keeping beardies (I prefer holding / handling blueys!), although I'm sure they also make great pets. As for looks - I prefer the look of a BTS over the spikey beardies, but I'm definitely biased (and most on this forum will be).