My first lizard, Frankie

[Frango]

Hello people, been signed up to this forum ever since I got Frankie about a month ago.
He is 18 months old we believe and after looking at the different sub species of blue tongues we think he is a marauke. Im currently feeding him around 4 times a week with dog food, chicken, eggs, and fruit his diet. I gave him a medium sized mouse the other day too which he was loving but obviously not something I will give him often.

Ive attached a picture so any tips or thoughts on my setup and skink are welcome. Also any ideas on Frankies gender would be welcomed.

hmm, so how do i add photos. Cannot find the right property to upload between relevant bb code.

[Nae]

Welcome to the forum

To upload a photo, you can click on 'upload attachment' down the bottom then hit browse~ If that doesnt work for you (It rarely does for me!), then an external hosting site such as Photobucket works well (Not to mention you can use the images elsewhere!) Use the IMG code -

[img]Link[/img]

[Frango]

Thanks for that. . Should be working now.

[Bird_Brain]

Welcome! I'd agree, you got a merauke. Feel free to post more pictures

[Frango]

any idea on gender? What kind of pics will give you the best idea?

[Lea]

Welcome! A good photo from above ànd usually a head picture, will help. I'm hopeless with sexing, unless its a shingleback and even then I'd say I'm only right half the time

At least the name frankies isn't gender specific.

[Frango]

Do you think he will grow much bigger than that?

[Cenetri]

Great looking merauke! He looks like an adult in the photo to me, though if you can, could we get a measurement? He definitely appears to be an adult/sub-adult by now, being 18 months. But he might have some room to grow.

By the way, do you incorporate vegetables into his diet too? I didn't catch it if you mentioned you did in the original post, only meats and fruit.

[Frango]

Hi, I will get an accurate measurement of him soon.

I haven't currently given him any veggies. Do you recommend any for him?

I try and give him a well balanced diet but he gets picky with anything not fleshy or eggy .

Thanks alot, I thought he was pretty too.

[Linnea]

hello and welcome!
beautiful meruake.

if you look over the food charts available through this site, you will find many examples of veggies and how often to feed them.
then you will notice, that a bluey eat quite a lot of greens even in nature, since they are omnivores and not carnivores.

for an adult bts we recommend 60% veggies and 40 % of your chosen protein source.

example of staple veggies: squash, aragula, mustard greens

about how to feed it. you chop the veggies and mix it with the meat. then they cant pick out everything. eventually theyll ejoy eating it like anything else.

your bluey is quite large (full adult meruake i mean) and will probably be picky with his food like any other bts, but dont give in. if theyre hungry they will eat, even if its not food theyre used to going two weeks without eating is very normal when adding new things.

feeding schedules are different, some feed 3 times a week, some feed once a week, do with what you like, but not more often. fat lizards are unhappy. (i currently have a new bts on a diet)

i recommend not feeding fruits with every feeding, sweets are sweets after all. it can be used for introducing new food as a positive experience, of course.

i need to add that there are also members here who only feed dog food and no veggies, and have no problems. so it is up to you what you choose.

i hope this helps.

[Spindown]

awww, hes cute!

I'd say same as above, I feed a staple group of veggies as green beans, squashes and mustard greens. However, I gave up on chopping them, even "finely" as my blueys are talented and STILL managed to pick them out or eat around them that way. Now I just through the veggies in the food processor.