BLUE TONGUE SKINKS

I have this terrarium:


I caught my skink climbing the styrofoam rock background. He seemed to climb it really easy and made it about half way up before I grabbed him off. I'm worried that he could fall and get injured or develop a spinal deformity as I read here:

http://www.bluetongueskinks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=22315

Any tips? I'm thinking about taking it out since it sits against a wall and shouldn't make it feel any more exposed. I also have a piece of wood that I can put in there for him to climb instead, but I'm not sure how much that would help.

Hmm what is the height of the enclosure that could make my answer a little bit more accurate but for now I think if you were to have a gradual incline of loose bedding up to the wall it might me able to dilute just having a 90°angle change so it shouldn't bend him to far and having the loose bedding should act as a pillow to break his fall ... actually you could probably put a pillow to soften the fall; I'll conduct my experiment and tell you how it goes, Good luck my friend!

I have a group of juvie kingskinks that do that in one of those cages,they seem to prefer sitting up on wall under light more than the branch i added for them,not only do they run around all over the wall but they are ignoring my hiding options and getting behind the wall through the 2 notched out bits at ground level,i tried piling the substrate high against the wall but the lil buggers know the holes are there now and just dig those 2 areas away to get in behind wall,so i just leave them to it now,they still come out alot,but i swear 80 percent of the time is spent on that wall,on inside or out,lol

@SmaugTheBluey - it's an 18" high terrarium (36x18x18)

@Richard.C - Haha, I catch mine doing that with those holes as well. He's too big to get behind them but he still tries.

That's a good idea for angling it out to add a little slope to it. I may give that a try. As Smaug said, I'd probably be a lot better off with softer substrate. Right now I just have the paper towels, so it's not very soft. I'm going to be putting in the aspen pretty soon.

Thanks guys for the great tips!