Too scared to bask?

[wermy]

We have a fairly busy household and keep Titus's tank in the living room. He's a flighty little baby and still quite scared of us. I read on the main site care sheet to just let him get used to the busy environment, but I'm worried about his short term health regarding the need to bask to digest his food. He does come out on his basking rock when the place is quiet, but when people start moving through the room he slinks away and burrows. Will this affect his digestive health?

[starscream3232]

A couple of my skinks are pretty shy. I keep them in a separate room so there isn't much noise. I only see them basking in the morning and sometimes later in the afternoon. They have good appetites so I'm never worried if they aren't warming them selves up enough. How is your baby eating?

[NickBrahz]

How is he pooping? does he go regularly? if so then you have nothing to worry about.

[wermy]

I actually don't know if he's pooping. His substrate is a 2-4 inch layer of dark brown coconut fibre/bark mix and it would be hard to tell, especially if he's pooped while burrowed deep in there, which is where he spends 23 hours of the day. I've only seen the poop he did on his first day (we've had him 5 days in total) because it was in his log tunnel. He still has a hearty appetite though, he has eaten something every day he's been here and just had a teaspoonful of cat food + butternut an hour ago, so I'm hoping that means he is pooping?

[NickBrahz]

I use similar substrate, coconut husk or something, what some people do is for the first few weeks or months have them on paper or something so can see if they are on a regularly eating and pooping and such.

I imagine he is pooping seeing he seems to have a normal appetite, i imagine if they were holding them in they would get backed up and stop eating or something, and from the pictures i saw he was a normal size not a balloon, what are your enclosure temperatures?

[wermy]

Oh we're working on temps, he never goes to the cool end where his rock pool is (room temperature, around 25 C) so I'm afraid it might be too cold for him there. Currently his hot end is 33 C down on the substrate level and 35 C up on the basking rock. Unfortunately our tank is quite tall so the heat lamp isn't as close to him as it should be, but we're devising a hanging timber sort of thing so we can hang it lower and aim for 38/39 C on the basking rock.

If I don't see any poops in the next few days I will take out his substrate and have him on paper towels!

[NickBrahz]

It might be easier and safer to put something there so he is closer to the light then to trying to rig it to hang lower and possibly have it fall and hurt him, and the basking spot should be 35-38C(Some say up to 43C) so having it at 35C if its consistent should be fine.

And what helped my Louie start to poop regularly was i would take him into the direct sun everyday at the same time and he would poop within 5-10 minutes, at least at first now he poos just fine in his enclosure.

[wermy]

It is fairly consistent, what concerns me is that he seems too nervous to expose himself out there and so hardly ever gets to be in that warmth. I would like to take him out in the sun, but he's never out...only around 11am for feeding time and then he's off burrowing again for the rest of the day and I don't want to dig him up and upset him. :/

[NickBrahz]

Maybe you could try coaxing him out with food thats when you take him out to the sun where he can bask while he eats and then hopefully poop, but i think that he is pooping but in the substrate, maybe put on some gloves and then just go through the substrate a bit to look for some poop when it dries it becomes almost black colour.

[Dood]

If his poops are firm and normal and not too loose then he is digesting fine and you can let him tough it out in getting use to people coming and going

If his poops are abnormal then I would put a hide on the basking side for him to warm up under or curtain off the whole tank until he recouperates