BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

I'm curious what everybody's skinks prefer to eat, and what you feed them to cover each nutritional catagory?

I imagine there's many things one can feed a skink, and I'd like to see what people have had good experiences with so I can try to broaden mine's diet.

So post what you feed them, what they tend to love to eat, and if you know, how these foods benefit them.

Right now my skink only eats cat/dog food with veggies, calcium/vitamin supplements, with the occasional worm/insect.

If you do a search, there are quite a few threads with pics of meals etc to help give ideas.

They generally love meats, feeders and fruits - I love to feed treats occasionally, but generally I stick with healthy meals rather than meals they will love, so greens / veggies mixed in there.

Lots of breeders use a very simple diet of dog food and frozen veggies or greens with supplements. So it doesn't have to be difficult or fancy. I usually feed a bit more variety than that, because I have the time to prepare meals. Most often I use canned dog food for protein, they also get bits of cooked chicken, beef, turkey, raw or cooked eggs, dew worms etc if I have it and want to throw it in. For greens / veggies - I feed whatever I have in the fridge, with more emphasis on the healthier ones. So if I have squash, arugula, mushrooms, bell peppers and spinach then I might feed some of all of them, but put more of the first three in and just a bit of the others for variety. If I don't have much time then I'll just feed some arugula and dog food. I also had a ton of healthy stuff at one time, so I put it all in the food processor and froze it in ice cube trays - so often I will use some of that instead of bothering to chop up fresh stuff. The frozen stuff has dandelion, arugula, watercress, spinach, butternut and acorn squash, green beans, mushrooms, carrot, broccoli and maybe some other stuff in there.

I'm attaching some pics, some of them are pretty old.

For a base/protein I use either a high quality cat/dog food. If I am cooking any lean meats for our dinner I will cut off a small bit and just boil in a small bit of water and give that for protein. I always am sure to put some greens in the food processor (mustard greens I find last longer so I use them more often) and mix in with the protein/base and then I will cut up carrots, green beans, bell peppers, mushrooms etc and add them a bit chunkier dice so the skink has some jaw work to do. I give just a small bit of fruit in between feeding days and the favorites so far are grapes, cherries and bananas and blueberries. Fav veggies have been bell peppers and carrots. Dislikes for mine have been eggs (cooked any way or raw) brocolli, and boiled chicken.

My guy was basically given live goldfish before I got him (he is about 5 years old I was told) so he doesn't respond to just veggies or any bugs. So I feed the highest quality wet mash dog food I can find (first three ingredients are chicken, turkey, and beef) and mix veggies into it so he will eat them.

The veggies include:
collard greens
mustard greens
various squash (usually whatever is on sale)
brussle sprouts
sweet potato

Every week I mix in some sort of different veggie. Last week was mustard greens so this week will be squash and brussle sprouts. Thankfully my bearded dragon helps Mr. Blue eat the veggies so nothing goes to waste (and I don't mean the veggies I mix into the dog food) around here. If you don't know Bearded Dragons are virtually bottomless pits when it comes to food.

I don't feed any cat or dog food, for protein I stick with live food. At the moment that's mostly locusts/crickets, but I have a trio of giant african land snails which will hopefully begin breeding in a few months time, when they'll become the staple. I'm vegan so I don't have any meat in the house, and my dogs and cats have dry food, so this is the most convenient and ethical way for me to get the appropriate protein for Gonzo.

Veg wise he has a huge variety, again due to my own diet. Dandelions are the staple greens as my garden's overrun with them and I like the idea of free food, but the other bits vary wildly. I'm planning to do a big batch of the veggies that I don't buy too often and freeze in single portions to make feeding even easier.

There's so many great ideas here! I had no idea their diet could be THAT varied. I can't wait to re-vamp Coby's menu now I have been wondering if I could freeze smaller portions and just make a big batch because I feel like I often end up wasting food because just having one bluey to feed, plus my dad's beardie who eats a lot of the same things, that it goes bad before I can use it all. I was just worried that it would lose some nutritional value being frozen and then thawed out. Question though- How do yall thaw your frozen food out? Just take out a day or 2 at a time and let them thaw? I also wondered if putting the bag in some hot water would work, too. I saw someone mention using an ice cube tray, but can ziploc baggies work as well?

I use ziplock bags and freeze about 2 meals in each bag . After it gets taken out of the freezer it should last 5-7 days . I make a big batch once every 6 weeks . Sometimes I will toss in some extra veggies that I have around that r fresh .

I used to freeze chopped fruit and veggies to my crabs, and I'd break off a little block and just put it under their lamp- it kinda thawed instantly. Be careful though as it also makes it spoil and grow mold faster.

It is so great to see all these choices out here, thanks everyone.

lemon1 wrote:I use ziplock bags and freeze about 2 meals in each bag . After it gets taken out of the freezer it should last 5-7 days . I make a big batch once every 6 weeks . Sometimes I will toss in some extra veggies that I have around that r fresh .

Thanks so much I will definitley have to try this.

You lose a bit of thiamine when freezing veggies, but I just make sure to mix some fresh stuff in when it is convenient for me. To thaw, I just leave it out or if I want to thaw it faster I put it in a stainless bowl and place the bowl in some hot water. The metal heats up quickly and thaws the frozen cubes very quickly.

For those saying they didn't know the variety you can feed - have you seen the food chart? http://bluetongueskinks.net/foodchart.html It has lots of ideas, although the possibilities definitely aren't limited to only what appears on there.