Kei Island Joy (with a little frustration thrown in)

[Ophidiophile]

So my Kei Islands have been a joy to work with but I decided to photograph some of them today and I open the first baby cage and here's what I find:

Halftail1.jpg

Say what?! These guys (babies and adults alike) are all housed individually and the babies are mostly fed daily with an occasional day skipped. Yesterday was NOT a skipped day - they were fed - and this little guy had a full tail when the cage was closed. There was also no trace of the tail in the cage so I'm assuming s/he ate it. I know it will regenerate but it's frustrating to give animals prime care and work with babies that are perfect and have something like this happen. Oh well... Anyone else experience this? I'm not talking about cagemates nipping but animals housed individually chowing on their own tails!

Anyway, after a good cry , I did take photos of some of the others...

Two other babies (they are starting to color up nicely):

Babe4.jpg

Babe6.jpg

The adults (who have been really easy to work with and are as tame as just about any of my other BTS):

Female 1:

F1a.jpg

Female 2:

F2a.jpg

F2b.jpg

The male:

M1.jpg

That's all folks!

[donkeybuff]

They are all gorgeous! The babies have changed a lot since the last time you posted pictures. It sucks that one of them decided to eat itself. That's really weird; I have no idea why that would happen. I have seen my northern chase his tail and flick his tongue at it quickly like he's going to take a bite of it, but he never actually tries to.

[Dakota]

Oh man -- you should send that baby over here to let me treat it for his autophagia!

Beautiful group, I have been off and on with getting some of these or more Halmaheras! The decision is soooo hard.

[Susann]

Seems to me Zach used to say that pretty much every year at least one baby would bite its own tail off.
I don't think anything you could've done, or not done, would've made any difference.

[Dakota]

Halmaheras have basically a silver head, and the the colors start at around the neck area.. you look at a Merauke, their colors are on the top of the head, but not on the side of the face (fading into a lighter tan color), but Kei's heads are all the same color but the nose (and a couple of the upper lip scales)! I love it!

[Seadation]

They are all beautiful! Sucks that little guy ate his own tail I wonder if he may have gotten some food on his tail walking around the enclosure enticing him to eat it. One if my guys goes crazy when he sees food and will come up and snatch it from anywhere including I'm sure his own tail. He has a very aggressive feeding response is your little guy like this also?

[Jbolar]

the only time i have ever experienced this was with baby and juvenile fire skinks, they were fed every day or every other day, well fed. and for some reason they'd see their own tail hanging outta the substrate after burying them self and take it off. or they'd miss their target and accidentally grab their tail assuming the prey was near it. and occasionally if housed together they'd eat each others tail which is why i started housing them separate. in the course of a year, the pet store i was employed at had a 2.4 group and produced maybe 300-500 in a year. this probably happened to 2 out of every 25 babies.

[donkeybuff]

the only time i have ever experienced this was with baby and juvenile fire skinks, they were fed every day or every other day, well fed. and for some reason they'd see their own tail hanging outta the substrate after burying them self and take it off. or they'd miss their target and accidentally grab their tail assuming the prey was near it. and occasionally if housed together they'd eat each others tail which is why i started housing them separate. in the course of a year, the pet store i was employed at had a 2.4 group and produced maybe 300-500 in a year. this probably happened to 2 out of every 25 babies.

300-500 in a year! I had no idea fire skinks were so prolific!

Ophidiophile, did that one defensive female end up calming down?

[Richard.C]

Had it recently shed?

Only time i notice them bite there own tail is to help to remove shed

Babies are coloring up well,you can easily tell there keis now,nice looking animals all of them

[Ophidiophile]

Thanks everyone. It's strangely comforting to hear there are precedents for this behavior (though I hope it doesn't happen to anyone here and I really hope none of the other Kei babies do it!). I doubt it had food on its tail because I actually never leave food in with them for an extended period. I put the food dish in, move the animal next to it, and remove the dish when they're finished eating. That animal had shed in the last few days and it actually had a bit of stuck shed but I bathed it and it was all off (I think?). In response to the question about defensiveness, I'd say they've all calmed down significantly. I can handle them (though I tend not to do it very much) without any fear at all of being bitten or even them trying to squirm out of my grasp. The babies are actually a bit huffier than the adults when their cages are first opened; the adults just seem to immediately look for the food bowl.

[RoryBreaker]

Out of all the non-Aussie blue tongue species, the Keis are the type I most drool over.

Pitty about the tail, it happens from time to time.

Thanks for posting , the adults look as though they have cleaned up a bit.

[Katrina]

They are gorgeous!

The tail thing is definitely not unheard of. It isn't super common but it happens. It's too bad but at least you know you couldn't have done anything. Congrats on the beautiful babies!

[Jeff]

They look great. I have only seen Keis in person a couple of times. Get to breeding them so that we can get our hands on some CBB!

[Jbolar]

the fire skinks laid between 4 and 8 eggs depending on the female, it literally felt like we were getting cluthes every 3 weeks until the colony was sold off and the store closed down. i should have bought them. Calzoo bought majority of the offspring. should have brought some home with me.

[mark_w]

the fire skinks laid between 4 and 8 eggs depending on the female, it literally felt like we were getting cluthes every 3 weeks until the colony was sold off and the store closed down. i should have bought them. Calzoo bought majority of the offspring. should have brought some home with me.

We're going a little off topic here, but i worked with fire skinks for a few years. The females lay 4 or 5 eggs and produce between 1 and 3 clutches per year. Also the incubation is not all that easy. They are not prolific. That is why they are imported in such numbers. 30 to 50 a year from 4 females is a realistic but difficult to achieve goal, with very few people who can achieve even that. 300 to 500? There is no lizard that produces at that rate! The most prolific lizard I can think of off hand is the bearded dragon, but their clutch size is maybe 25 eggs up to 2 or 3 times a year.

Beautiful keis by the way. I do like these.

Mark.