BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Just curious, how many of you are able to hand feed your skinks?

Like berries or treats etc?

I can't Blueberry would bite my fingers. I use tongs if that counts for hand feeding.

I hand feed all of mine, although I wouldn't recommend it if you don't know your BTS very well. My juvenile Northerns can get a bit overly excited, so I am very careful when feeding them not to get nipped. But the rest of mine seem to be very careful when taking food from hands, with most of mine I have no concerns about being bitten. I know I'm just fortunate, lots of BTS won't be this easy to hand feed.

I also don't hand feed very often - so not all interactions mean food. I hand feed just treats, they get regular meals on plates, so they don't associate me completely with food.

Here are a couple older pics. This one especially is just a sweetheart, extremely careful when taking food. She basically waits until I place it in her mouth.

awww.. super cute katrina

i hand feed blaze alot to develop that pet owner relationship

i feed berries from my palm to litchie, however, i am not able to do like kat and feed directly.

so....with fruits and such i just put them at random places in the terrarium and see if he finds them.

I hand feed my Shinglebacks on occasion. This is as long as I'm offering raspberries, blueberries, or other fruits or vegetables. It's too risky feeding superworms, however. The skinks get really excited and with the "worm" spinning around in my fingers, it's an accident waiting to happen!



Casey Lazik
http://www.reptilia.com

That picture is just gorgeous! I think that would be a winner for the March photo contest, the red raspberry stands out so perfectly.

I also don't feel live / wriggling food from by hand. No sense in asking for trouble!

Thanks. He really likes his raspberries!

Cute pics! It took awhile for mine to eat from my hand but she will now and is very gentle about it.

Yeh some of my blotchies - hand feeding takes on a new dimension - finger feeding.

What can I say, unless I run the risk of losing more then a finger, I attempt to hand feed everything

Wild shingles are certainly not an exception -



(Its a fairly old video - Just click on the picture to watch )

Edit: Oh and of course Zekes vid! In which he bites me as hes confused as the where the food went But that didnt hurt at all, and it was the first and last time he has done. Fancy that, been playing with wild shingles since I was little, and I get my first bite from a tiny, captive bred baby skinky!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSahkYyH ... AAAAAAAAAA

Cute video. My daughter made me play it a half dozen times.

Once they get your hand a few times they tend to be much more careful about it. I agree that feeding live food by hand is a good recipe for getting your fingers chomped-but I still do it anyway.

You guys got some great pictures of handfeeding <3 I have hand fed Mr Blue a few times, nearly to get my fingers taken in the process. He just gets SO excited at the treats I give him (usually something like a piece of red meat, chicken, fish) that he bites at anything and everything. I don't think he likes any of the fruit I got enough to eat out of my hand. Hand feeding is a scary affair, but I enjoy offering up my fingers to see a happy excited skink!

With live worms such as superworms/morios, i find that squeezing them slightly whilst presenting them to my skink often reduces its wriggling. Hold it near its head, squeeze it slightly and its much easier. Dont squeeze too hard though cause then it wont wriggle at all or will pop. When my skink grabs it it often wriggles like hell anyway and then he shakes it like crazy. With me just geting my skink ive tried building trust with hand feeding and its worked brilliantly, hes completely comfortable with my hands in his enclosure now.

Thought i would get a video ot my skink eating a morio, quite calm for him too.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPhITdO ... ata_player

http://youtu.be/knGklr5Rdig

Mine eating

My Merauke is always gentle, whether it's my hands or tongs with a meal worm on them. Here's a video of him eating some egg from my hand. =^w^=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHfQwqAA ... AAAAAAAEAA