BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

I was just pretty shock in this few weeks, 2 of baby merauke was born in the same batch, show very extremelly
different in part of growing, I thought this case would never happen. They were born mid october 2011, both
born pretty normal in growing charge until last month, the other one ( nice pattern one actually ) shown of MBD
symptom. The other one show very much healthy baby, but the other one, show the back bone start bulging
shape. And until today baby both pretty much healthy, both eat really well. Just getting worse shape on back bone.
Anyone can explain in specificly happening, is it MBD because baby it self grow when mother still pregnant or is genetic result of recessive?



Put them together side by side, so you can see the comparison.



MBD...??



The other healthy one.



The Mother..



The Father...

So that's where the new meraukes are coming from.
The mother looks like an eastern not a merauke.

ML - stick to the topic at hand. The mother may have a Eastern look but she definitely isn't Eastern. Lots of gigas BTS have that kind of look.

As for the MBD question - what is their diet? Do you supplement calcium? I'm not sure if you can get Calcium with vitamin D3 there, but if you can I'd recommend picking some up and adding it.

Interesting discussion, I'm not entirely sure what caused it. Thanks for posting this, it is very interesting.

It is impossible to diagnose positively from pictures, but it does look like a case of MBD. As Katrina mentioned, that would most likely be caused by a calcium deficiency. All skinks are different, so even if both of the baby skinks have been given the same diet it is possible that it would affect them differently.

I assume you are keeping these inside, so they are not exposed to direct sunlight. In that case, you also need to include vitamin D3 with the calcium supplement you add to their food. Is that something you have available where you live? If not, I woould try to get the skinks outside in the sunlight on a regular basis.

nice merauke

Nice looking animals.

One other possible cause comes to mind. Has that little one spent a lot of time resting or trying to crawl upright against the glass? I have seen curved spines caused by this.

Katrina wrote:ML - stick to the topic at hand. The mother may have a Eastern look but she definitely isn't Eastern. Lots of gigas BTS have that kind of look.

As for the MBD question - what is their diet? Do you supplement calcium? I'm not sure if you can get Calcium with vitamin D3 there, but if you can I'd recommend picking some up and adding it.

Interesting discussion, I'm not entirely sure what caused it. Thanks for posting this, it is very interesting.

Thanks for the response, if its not interested case like ghis I wouldnt bother to open thread.

They diet all same type of food, I feed them pretty much enough nutrition and balance diet.
SUN BASKING every morning. Malaysia always have beautiful sunshine every day, with not so much polution
In my area, still have lots of green.
I took photograph at nite time, when I rwally got time to relax and play with them. Morning Im lot more busy feeding
And sun basking.
I combined they food, every the other day, so not quite every day. Im giving them more on veggies and fruits than meat
60%-40%. So Im not sure about they have enough calcium or not. Balance diet like :
Chicken, minced meat, sometimes turkey, eggs, cook chicken liver.
Strawberry, papaya, banana, hibiscus( have tree on my yard ) carrot, swet peas, corn.

Actually the babies have 2 more siblings, really gorgeous...I have sold them. I didnt see any defect at all with those 2.
Im keeping the nice one, because tje biggest, hoping its a male, my merauke lack lf male.

Fyi, parents are WC.

If you give them lots of natural sunlight, an easy way to add calcium would be to crush up egg shells into a fine powder and sprinkle it onto the food. I would try doing that and adding some to most meals, especially for that one. Interesting how it only affects the one bluey and the others are ok. It might be something like Acanthurus mentioned as well.

Jeff wrote:It is impossible to diagnose positively from pictures, but it does look like a case of MBD. As Katrina mentioned, that would most likely be caused by a calcium deficiency. All skinks are different, so even if both of the baby skinks have been given the same diet it is possible that it would affect them differently.

I assume you are keeping these inside, so they are not exposed to direct sunlight. In that case, you also need to include vitamin D3 with the calcium supplement you add to their food. Is that something you have available where you live? If not, I woould try to get the skinks outside in the sunlight on a regular basis.

My question, MBD cant be from parent genetic ? Im more than agree with you every single skink have different way
of growing on they health, I've been watching them closely even when they eating.
I spread calcium more likely one a month/ once in 2 months...my bad, should I give them more often even they have morning sun every day?

This is very extraordinary case also for me, very rare I see MBD in my case, even if have, it will happen after
a year, I could see symptom start on the back bone. Could be lack of sunlight or from diet.
I never really seen calcium deficiency when skink only 6 weeks old.

Like I said to Katrina, I have no problem with morning sunlight, more than enough.

acanthurus wrote:Nice looking animals.

One other possible cause comes to mind. Has that little one spent a lot of time resting or trying to crawl upright against the glass? I have seen curved spines caused by this.

Could be true, they doing that either on they character or really something wrong already with calcium deficiency and that style make them comfy or some skink really do that because dont like we come close near them, always happen with babies...
But merauke wouldnt do that, gigas always do that, but I never seen gigas have bulging back.
The other thing as well, they will crawl up right when Im basking sun every morning. Not quite thats will cause
the problem.

That baby is my favorite now, she/he too special, as long anything on his back not make him agony, his appetite is very much like healthy baby skink. He just look so unique, cant wait for him to grow up.