Is he "happy"?

[dwright27]

Hi everyone,
I have an approximately 6 y/o BTS that I've had for about 2 years. I'm just wondering.. how do I know that I'm doing what's best for him? He is very territorial of his tank, and dislikes being handled. He attacks his water dish every time I give him fresh water (so far, I've been lucky to avoid getting myself bitten).. And.. well.. other than that, he doesn't "do" much. He's in a 75 gallon Tetra-Fauna terrarium with a 150W Halogen and a UVB150.. He gets fed every 3-4 days (canned dog food and greens, occasional banana) and he's usually on coconut chip substrate.

Anyway.. how do you guys tell if your reptiles are content? That they would act the exact same way in another home..?

[dwright27]

In addition, I am looking for research articles but I'm not having much luck so far. I understand that the emotional/cognitive abilities/limits of reptiles haven't been studied very much yet..

[Zalder]

(Heads Up: I'm no expert and a lot of people know more than me)

1: Blueys are more inclined to display that their are malcontent then to give you a thank you card.
They'll huff and puff if a little uncomfortable and this is pretty common when your hand is in the tank, but a lot of them calm down once their out.
They'll actually display their blue tongue if they feel very threatened, but this isn't very common outside the Tanimbar variety
(example 1: http://www.bluetongueskinks.net/tan.avi Courtesy of the main site;
example 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhpPM1KbnrU Courtesy of Spindown)

2: Trust what you've learned; if you know you're feeding them what they need and the tank is set up appropriately and they're not sick, then maybe they just have a grumpy personality

3: There's a lot of advice to help "tame" your bluey. Go to the caresheet and jump to the "Taming/Calming" bit:
The most helpful one I've found in the past is hand feeding, carefully of course!

4: Herps in general seem pretty lazy.
We're mammalian and most common household pets are mammalian, so we move around a lot and wear our hearts on our sleeves, most of us anyway. Reptiles ,on the other hand, are a little more reserved, and they're ectothermic so their favorite thing to do is bask. So yeah, not super active.

I'm sure I've missed some things, but this should help you out. Good luck!

[SensualTheRogue]

Im also not an expert but i've noticed a change in my skinks behavior when i changed his bedding, i had a bark/mulch style substrate and looking back it was not ideal, he would huff and puff and attempt to eat the three little pigs but when i changed it to aspen shavings there was an immediate change in his behavior. Something that you could do is a trust exercise involving feeding, i would use meal worms as you can hold them and because their long and you're skink has a reduced chance of accidentally biting you

[dwright27]

Ack, I didn't get the notifications of your replies, sorry!
I'm going to try to get him to the vet soon for a check-up, as he's overdue.
He does bask and eat normally, although he's currently shedding and it's taking longer than it usually does. Normally he's done in a day or so.. now we're at the end of day 3 and he's not finished.
He won't eat mealworms or superworms any more since one bit his insides and he had to regurgitate it... it drew blood, poor guy. But I've tried to give them to him since, even dead ones, and he won't touch them.
It's tough to give him any attention right now as well because of my work schedule (it's only for the summer, then back to school and I'll be home more). By the time I get home, his light is about to turn off. I only started turning it on earlier in the day because, well, he was getting up early regardless lol. So he's got the light/heat on from 6am-6pm.. Do you think I should extend the time?

He generally doesn't display, it's mostly just the huffing and puffing. I can just look at him and he starts lol.

I got a skink because I thought they were supposed to be more "personable" than other reptiles.. But I feel I've failed so far. I'll try hand-feeding him some more soon. I handfeed him banana sometimes, though lately he won't even take that from me until I put it down on his basking log.

He was my first reptile (my second being my 1.5 y/o redfoot tortoise).

[Richard.C]

Just a heads up,not all blueys are what folk consider puppy dog tame,some will hang onto a bit of tude,especially inside there cage,often when picked up they settle,also note even tame ones can get huffy,there moods can change with the seasons to,some males are nutjobs in the spring when testosterone os at its peak,later in the season females can turn more nutty to,but some stay mellow right the way through,lots of variety in how they all behave.

I find even fiesty blueys to be a pretty mellow reptile,i also wonder if alot of keepers are just to terrified of there skinks and mistake normal huffs ect as signs of aggression,people have just as wide a variety of how they percieve there blueys to be behaving as blueys can behave

From your description he sounds perfectly normal to me