BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

Well I recently found a local ad of someone who was moving and couldn't take their bluey with them and they had to find him a new home ASAP. Well I couldn't say no to a Skink in need...
Anyways! Tomorrow I am going to go meet "him" and pick "him" up! Apparently he is just over a year old, is a super friendly Indo, and it looks like he is in good shape and is getting well taken care of. Tomorrow can't come fast enough And then I still have baby from Mel to look forward to in two weeks!

Since I don't have him yet I can't take any pictures of him, but I got sent a couple of pictures of him! So these will have to do until I can have a proper photo shoot.

Congrats. Appears to be a merauke/ij though. Id ditch the substrate. Rock and sand is too heavy and if it gets moist, it smells horrible.

I hope it already crossed your mind, but just as a reminder, keep this skink and Mel's baby apart from each other. IMO, they should be housed in separate rooms of the house. Also, be sure to wash up after handling one skink and then going to the next (washing hands should be common practice after handling any reptile though, IMO). Quarantine will quickly become your friend and save you a lot of headaches in the future!

Well that looks like a Merauke to me. His setup definitely needs work. Looks like it's a 40 gallon breeder with a sliding top. I currently have my adult Merauke in one and I would say it's adequate, but only barely so. Definitely change out the substrate and get some hides in there. I doubt he can fit in that little log thing. I would probably take out that ramp too, or lower it.

Despite the setup issues he seems to be in pretty good condition. Do you know what diet they have him on?

Pretty new Merauke! That's exciting. I agree with ditching that substrate. Maybe you could get a bigger tank for the newbie and use that tank for the new baby till she grows up?

Okay, I wasn't entirely sure on the whole Indo thing either, so thanks for the input!

But yeah, I didn't think the substrate was suitable. I will be sure to pick up some more coco mulch soon!
I pretty much have already planned to change everything about his set up. Except the food dish. That looks fine. But especially since he can't burrow until I get some different substrate, I will be sure to add some more hides!

I was thinking the same thing about the ramp, I am kinda worried he would fall from it up there!

As for his diet, I will just quote what she said "As far as food in concerned he eats a lot of things. I feed him salad/strawberries/raspberries regularly. He loves eggs, raw, hard boiled, and scrambled. He loves chicken and beef (cooked with no spices at all) but you can feed it to them raw. He enjoys meal worms but isn't very fond of crickets."
I am planning on switching him over to Wellness dog food and to add some more veggies and greens.

Fatal_S wrote:Pretty new Merauke! That's exciting. I agree with ditching that substrate. Maybe you could get a bigger tank for the newbie and use that tank for the new baby till she grows up?

Actually I had a similar plan! I already bought a larger wooden terrarium for Etsy (50"L x 22"W x 24"H), and I still have the large Exo-Terra, so maybe I will move the new guy into the wooden one, and Etsy can move into the Exo-Terra until I get another large wooden one.

How did I go from 0 to 3 terrariums so quickly!?

Edit: Oops! Completely missed out on the second half of ReptileKings's post.
Yes I will be housing them separately Apparently I now have an overabundance of terrariums to choose from!

Sounds like a good plan!

Lovely skink and the new meal plan will be good for him. Definitely post more pictures once he's home!

Karen wrote:Sounds like a good plan!

Lovely skink and the new meal plan will be good for him. Definitely post more pictures once he's home!

Oh I will Prepare to be drowned in pictures!
I get kind of trigger happy.

If you use anything from this guy for the baby, be sure to thoroughly clean it with bleach first. With any animal of unknown origins, you need to treat it like it's got a deadly disease until you know it doesn't (1-3 months, depending on how thorough you want to be). I don't like bringing this up, but it does need to be said. Mistakes on this lead to awful consequences I've been there.

Fatal_S wrote:If you use anything from this guy for the baby, be sure to thoroughly clean it with bleach first. With any animal of unknown origins, you need to treat it like it's got a deadly disease until you know it doesn't (1-3 months, depending on how thorough you want to be). I don't like bringing this up, but it does need to be said. Mistakes on this lead to awful consequences I've been there.

Oh no, I am glad you bring it up! Everything I have gotten used so far (Two terrariums, lamps, dishes, etc.) I made sure to thoroughly clean first. Heck, that wooden terrarium I got still had old substrate in it that was filled with old shed and dead crickets! Pretty sure I saw a few itsy bitsy micro bugs in there too. There wasn't any way I was going to put my baby Etsy in that without giving it a proper bleaching!

But even with that, do you still recommend letting it sit empty in quarantine for a while?

He's adorable!! Congrats! I am also getting one from Mel's second litter and just had a similar encounter.

I was at PetSmart looking at hudes and substrates and lamps etc. and they have a blue tongue skink as well! I held her and played with her for almost an hour and almost left the place crying. She has been there for almost a year and the lady said there has been NO interest in her :(. I almost went from 0 to 2 in 2 weeks! AHHH

He's gorgeous! Congrats! I know I would have to jump on something like that if it were local, despite my "Next reptile has to be a tegu" promise xD

BruinsEv wrote:He's adorable!! Congrats! I am also getting one from Mel's second litter and just had a similar encounter.

I was at PetSmart looking at hudes and substrates and lamps etc. and they have a blue tongue skink as well! I held her and played with her for almost an hour and almost left the place crying. She has been there for almost a year and the lady said there has been NO interest in her :(. I almost went from 0 to 2 in 2 weeks! AHHH

Isn't that the way it always goes!? Nothing for months, then WHAMMO. More skinks than you can shake a stick at.
So are you going to get that skink from PetSmart?

tylociraptor wrote:He's gorgeous! Congrats! I know I would have to jump on something like that if it were local, despite my "Next reptile has to be a tegu" promise xD

There is always room for a few extra blueys AND a Tegu
I mean really, do you actually need a bedroom? I am sure your couch is perfectly acceptable for your sleeping needs.

HAHA! if you want the truth, I would be perfectly happy allowing a livingroom to be assigned to animals instead of television and such. XD I don't need a big telly, a small one will do, and hey, I don't even need a telly!!! hehehe

EEEE! HE IS HERE, HE IS HERE!!
D'awww he is such a cutey! We met in a parking lot and she got him out with no problems, not a huff or anything. Even when I held him! And my gosh! I was under the impression he was a year old adult, but he is tiny! Then when I asked her again she insisted there was no way he is over a year old. Which I won't complain about I am guessing he is probably 7-9 months old.

She even had already switched him over to aspen shavings. But I still think that terrarium is too small, hopefully I will have him switched over fairly soon.

I know I am breaking the sacred law around here... but I didn't take any pictures today . He is burrowed in his aspen and I don't have the heart to dig him out after such a stressful day. Hopefully tomorrow though.

But I did discover after I found a small glass table to perch his terrarium on top of, if you lay underneath it and look up you can see his whole body and little feeties resting against the glass! I spent five minutes just watching him breathe while I chatted away to him, and he just tilted his head and looked at me like I was crazy little troll living under a bridge.

I already love him to bits! "His" name is Bruce by the way. Do you guys think I should keep it? My mom loves the name because she considers it very Australian. I don't mind either, I think it is a okay name. I just wanted something more gender neutral just in case.

Just to add a bit more to the wall of text...
On the car ride home I noticed two teeny tiny black bugs that were skittering around rather fast in the aspen, is that something to be worried about?

And, he comes with a small container of Fluker's calcium : phosphorus (2:1) but I already bought some Fluker's phosphorus free calcium with D3, which should I use? When she was talking to me she said he apparently had some "osteoporosis" like problems when he was younger, which I guess means MBD. But she said it got all better when she started giving him UV light.

Just to clarify:
What ReptileKing was talking about was not for you to HOUSE your two skinks separately, but for you to QUARANTINE your two skinks.
Don't get me wrong; you SHOULD house them separately! But what you were being warned about was to keep your two skinks, and everything that touches them, and everything that they touch, separate. Ideally they should not even breathe the same air, i.e. be kept in separate rooms, as far away from one another as possible, for up to 3 months.
Especially since you already seem to have a mite problem with this one (the little black bugs you saw in the aspen). If this guy is about 7 months old then it is almost 100% sure either born to a wild-caught mother, or wild-caught itself. You don't want anything from this guy to, in any way, infect your new little CBB baby coming from Mel!

Maybe you already knew all this, but I just wanted to make sure.
But CONGRATS on your beautiful Merauke!!!

Thanks! I did know that quarantine rules should be strictly applied, but a reminder never hurts.

Any idea for how I can identify what types of mites they are? They don't look like snake mites, but I didn't get a good look and could be mistaken. Then what is the best way to get rid of them? If they are mites it isn't very bad yet because I have only seen those two so far.

Also I figured that about him being WC too. I thought if he was a year old he had a good chance of coming from a breeder. But then she also told me that he came from PetSmart... but then she swore up and down there was no way he was WC and that she had an actual paper guarantee he wasn't. But I didn't get to see if it said he was captive born or bred. I am guessing probably born to a WC mom then and therefore just born in captivity.

But despite these minor things, I can tell he is still going to be a great skinker.

I am hoping I can bribe him out of hiding today with a snail and get a few pictures of him. I am not sure if he will eat today since he hasn't been out of hiding in his aspen since I held him at the parking lot yesterday.

if bugs were moving round fast they probably werent mites,always good to treat new arrivals anyways,just to be safe